Dark Alley
by No-joy
Summary: Molly thought again about Hector's parents ripping away Hector's presence from the house with such a surgical and efficient cruelty. How little Grey must have found of his previous life when he returned to that now barren flat that used to be his home.A year had passed and, entering the apartment once more, an overwhelming sadness seeped into her soul.
1. Chapter 1

**Title**: Dark Alley - Chapter 1

**Disclaimer**: This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators. I am not making a profit out of it. Neither I intend to lessen the original worth of the series or its different characters.

* * *

The alley was dark; dark as pitch, dark as night, and as dark as his thoughts. There was nothing that he could see, not without even so much as a stray moonbeam, but he could feel that his pants were wet and clinging to him like a second skin. He'd lost his shoes; where, he had no idea. At the moment it didn't matter. Remembering how he'd arrived in this condition seemed a much better pursuit…

"Carlito! For God's sake! Carlito...!"

The man who belonged to that voice sounded concerned. He struggled, but felt himself slipping into oblivion... deeper and deeper. The world seemed far away. It was a strange sensation. He floated, his thoughts fluffy as a homemade mousse; mouth, eyes and nose pricking just enough to remind him he was alive. It was almost soothing, relaxing-- a sweet caress to his overloaded senses. No information to process, no rush, no sense of duty; just peace and quiet, a balm to his troubled soul.

His was indeed a troubled soul. In the protecting void that surrounded him it didn't seem right to call for forward thoughts. Floating; floating was all right. Those rosy lights, suave, dancing in front of his eyes. Were those coming from a Windows 7 start up screen? The thought seemed to fit just right. Bright soft dots connecting. Soon they'd be meeting each other, gravity forcing them to create something bigger, important, meaningful, like his team did... and he was a part of it.

The team. What happened to the team? Top? Mack? Bob? Oh, Geezuz... Sweet Geezuz... No...

_Ten days before_

"Talk!" Grey remained silent just staring at the syringe in Jonas hands. Jonas felt his patience slip. "You have nothing to say? You had plenty to say when you were sick and stoned in that hospital. Now suddenly you don't have opinion on anything? That you were in a restricted wing doesn't mean you were not monitored," Jonas stared down onto the smaller man, looming over him.

"Sit your butt down, Carlito." Bob too gave him no quarter.

"Why are you lying to us? Truth ain't pretty for you?" Jonas mocked.

"What is that for?" Carlito's gaze never left the syringe, feeling more than seeing the stares of Bob and Mack. His tone demanded a straight answer from Jonas. "Is it for me, Jonas? You gonna put me down?"

He didn't give Jonas a chance to respond. Carlito had one chance, and he took it. A kick forced Jonas back, and a wild strike at Bob's face pushed the other away. A second kick, this one to the sweet spot, put Mack onto the floor and Carlito out through the door.

He had a five second head start, and Carlito would make the most of it. He ran. His brain switched automatically to survival mood; no place, no capacity for second thoughts on what had just happened: that he had just been set up by the people he cared most for in the whole world.

He quickly assessed his best options and went for a car, not too old, nor too shiny, where he could escape from the immediate surroundings. First stop, a grocery store for some basic supplies.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 2

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

"Come on...! Stop bitching around with this! It's just a couple of stitches, Bob." Mack dabbed at the leftover blood.

"Anybody else miss Carlito right now?" Bob growled back at him.

"Only now?" Jonas's voice was deep—and unreadable.

"Bob, I swear: either you stay put or you do it yourself."

"At least clean your hands, man," Bob huffed.

"I washed them. Don't try to teach me what to do, Bobbo. I was stitching my dog years before Betty Blue learned his medic stuff, and that dog died of old age."

"All right, all right." Bob turned his head to Jonas refusing to look at whatever Mack was going to inflict on his sorry arm. "Top... Do you think Grey will—Ow! Dude!"

"Really, pretty boy... Just a little debriding to clear this mess. Relax."

"I didn't feel you stick me with any lido."

"Because I didn't. You don't need it and I've got other plans than replenishing the medkit this afternoon. Carlito will come to his senses in time and we'll hear from him soon, Top. I know the guy."

"Maybe—" Bob felt his heart kick up a notch when Mack took his arm again not very gently."Ow-ow! Careful there!"

"Relax... Relax... Keep talking now."

"Maybe we didn't do the right approach. He came from--- ". Too late; he looked. He'd told himself not to, and he looked. It was a big mistake—bile rose in his throat.

"Don't move" Mack slid the needle through tender flesh. "And finish what you want to say already. I'd be done and you'll still be composing your first sentence."

Bob swallowed hard, forcing himself to concentrate on what he needed to say. "Carlito might have grown up in LA, but he could have been as well been brought up by a pack of wolves. He is the one of the few around who still has a feral instinct in him at all times," he added. "When have you ever seen him relax? Really relax, I mean. Never," and Bob shook his head. "Not even among children."

"You saying he felt trapped and he reacted to that, but---" Jonas sat back, thinking, tapping his finger on the table beside him.

"Aw, come on now. What is this! Let's be honest: this is exactly what we did, we set him a trap. We are his brothers but we didn't show him much brotherly love." Mack stepped in. Bob's swollen face beaded in sweat and his stranded look told Mack to immediately put a plastic bag in Bob's free hand. "Try not to puke over the carpet. I don't want to pay extra for the cleaning."

"If I remember correctly, it was you who forgot to put away that syringe." Jonas said, irritation showing.

"Whoa! It was you to holding it in your hand and waving it in front of his face! I'd just prepared it and left it handy," Mack retorted as he pinched together the flesh on Bob's arm before sticking the needle through it. Still he couldn't fathom how a simple punch in the face had ended with Bob crashing against the only wood splinter of the otherwise immaculate hotel room they had rented for the occasion.

"I don't think---" Bob would rather talk about anything but focusing on the push and pull of the needle. Dammit, he hated needles of all sorts and the way the blood always rushed away from his head and left him light-headed and nauseous when one was involved. "Top, I don't think..."

"Yeah. Clearly it was a mistake. I thought we would have had time enough to make the point with him and carry on. It was trading speed for time. We don't have that much time left before we are secluded for Blue Ridge."

"He didn't know that, Top. OPSEC. Right? He had just been discharged from hospital. We left him down in Daz-el-Had. Carlito just---" Mack stopped mid-sentence. "Bob? Bob? You OK?"

"Yeah.. Yeah... " Bob swallowed hard. "Whatever, Mack... Carlito should have given the situation a minute to unfold. Nobody... Nobody resents it that Grey didn't think of us, ... of his team, as brothers but as... enemies?" Nausea caught up with him and he threw up all he had left in his stomach.

* * *

_One day later_

Carlito lay across a bare mattress, his boxer-clad body glistening with fever induced sweat, his eyes open wide and betraying how much PTSD had took hold of him, the glassy gaze seeing nothing of his surroundings. He was lying near a pool of his own vomit, his legs pulled up to his chest, small shivers running through his body, a new bruise forming on tender skin. Sure Ryan had known about his problem well before Grey had set foot in this country. Ryan might even have wanted to turn him into dirt in a landfill, something to cover up the trash, bury Grey's journey in Daz-el-Had so deep that he wouldn't know what had hit him. His hands now shook, hard and fast. He'd just had it. What the hell... He caught himself breathing fast, panic creeping up on him sideways. Fuck this. Fuck. He had to stop. Now.

"Goddam it, fucking midazolam! A restricted wing? The hell it was." Even his silent dialogue sounded wrong when he opened his eyes. At first there was nothing but a blur, a sick blur, and again the stench of vomit and old blood caught up with him. A cough shook him and for one long sick moment everything went white and muffled. On top of it all, having been stripped of the last clothes that covered his present misery by that gang of strung out skin heads had been the ultimate humiliation. Now he couldn't even count on going out of this filthy shelter on Foster Street when he couldn't pull together enough clothes to get him through the night. In fact, unprotected as he was in this abandoned house, he could even die of cold if his shivering didn't keep him from that fate, maintaining his body warmth. That wouldn't last long, he knew. Hopefully some addict would try to hole up in Grey's filthy corner soon, by the looks of the surrounding leftovers of previous visits. He gritted his teeth. In a few minutes he should be strong enough to give anyone coming close enough the good news, get on him some warm clothes and keep going.

That old saying sliced him just then like a knife... Keep your friends close, your enemies closer. Fucking Ryan. Using his own team against him was too sick even for the colonel. What the hell was going on?


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 3

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

"Molly, you sure it was Carlito?, Jonas asked her wife, watching her slip the bracelets off of her wrist and tucking them away into the drawer. He came up behind, reaching for the sturdy clasp to her necklace.

"No, Jonas . I already told you. It was someone who looked a lot like him; His eyes, mostly. Why? Is there any trouble with the man? It has been a long time since he last visited this house," Molly accepted her husband's help, taking the necklace from him and putting it into the box next to the bracelets.

"It has." Jonas agreed too quickly.

Molly turned around to look him directly in the eye. "Charlie is in trouble, isn't he? Why would you be so interested if he wasn't? So... What is it? Can you tell me?"

"If there is someone lurking around looking like Grey it's only logical I would like to know." Jonas dodged the question.

"As would I, Jonas." Molly was through with the dance. She put her hands on her hips. "Do I need to make some inquiries of my own?"

"Threatening me on my own house? I thought I was chatting with my better half ". Jonas couldn't help the smile that crept onto his face.

"Of course not. Just informing you as to what might happen when there is ignorance of the true events." Her return smile had teeth in it.

Jonas knew what that meant. "You just remember not to interfere, Molly. If you happen to see him, do not get near him. Just tell me. Tell me immediately, and do not get involved." Jonas paused. "Where did you think you saw him?" He couldn't help but stress the word 'think'.

Molly applied her own OPSEC blanket onto her memory: "Near Main Street in Tamarack," she smiled, already planning to be near the old Fayetteville neighborhood. A remembrance of eyes like lit carbons half covered by a filthy hoodie made her heart pound uncomfortably.

She had been looking for new realty prospects at the time. Around the corner and deep into the darkest alley she ever seen was an apparently abandoned house waiting to be flipped by an investor with enough imagination and money. The fading small figure of a man that she thought she knew and the way Jonas had spoken to her was enough to spark her curiosity.

* * *

Rule Seven of Molly's of the inner-directing sleuth operating manual stated clearly, when you don't have enough proof, learn anything you can, so off she went the next day. After all, she would be doing what she was paid for by her boss at the real estate agency and if, by any chance, she just happened to cross paths with Charlie again, so what? It would just be natural.

It had not taken her long to find that the hunched figure in the dark she saw was truly Charles Grey. She had him squarely in front of her eyes, inside the little garden shack, in the darkest corner of the abandoned house in Fayetteville where she had visited the day before. He was lying almost naked on an old and filthy mattress. She saw his bloody stained skin and puffy eyes before she even got close enough to hear his pained groaning. Jonas! Calling Jonas was her immediate and instinctive response but then her fiery temperament, her stubborn determination and compassionate nature demanded that for the moment control would not be turned over to her husband. Molly fell to her knees onto the floor next to that man.

Charlie blinked dazedly, oozing pain and hurt through obsidian piercing eyes that stubbornly focused on the wall, refusing to look at her. Something in the way Jonas spoke to her the day before and finding such a hardened operative as Charlie was in this state told Molly loud and clear that there was more to this than was obvious. She didn't hesitate to cover Charlie's quivering frame with her own jacket and she reached for the small bottle of water she always carried with her.

Molly held the open bottle to his mouth and urged him to take a few small sips. Charlie's head didn't move from its former position at the edge of the mattress. Only after Molly forced a bit more water into him could Charlie blink and focus on her. There was dried blood smeared over his face, and his eyes were black and swollen. No words crossed between them, but some further consciousness sparked in the man. Grey managed to lift his hand to touch the swollen tender skin around his broken nose. The movement set the rest of the body afire, as it had been waiting for his attention. His stomach clenched and heaved, and before he could stop himself, he'd coughed the water back up, barely missing Molly. Grey hunched over his drawn-up knees, muscles seizing, and he couldn't bite off the pained grunt, close to a feral growl. The look in his eyes lasted only a second or two, but it was a dangerous look that set Molly's skin crawling.

"Charlie..." Did she need to call for an ambulance? Any reasonable person would have said yes.

Grey gagged and threw up the little water he had left in him. The moment she realized the kind of stuff that littered the place, it was much easier for Molly to resist the urge to call Jonas for help. No, not before Charlie gave her his OK. This could cost him his place in the Unit, and it wouldn't be on Molly's watch that it would happen.

Molly racked her brains as to what her next move should be. Force more water into him? Then she yelped as one of Grey's hands grabbed her shirt.

"Charlie..."

"Don't... tell..." It was begging.

"I won't. But you need help---"

"Get me... clothes... food........" Grey got out before a new fit of coughing took away all the strength he had left. He sagged back onto the mattress, his hand falling away from her blouse.

She had two choices, and neither one appealed to her. She could call 911, and that would bring the world's attention to the man in front of her who didn't want it, or she could bring him help herself and pray that it would be enough. Molly knew which option Charlie wanted.

She hardened her resolve. "Charlie. I'm going to get you out of here, but you have to help me."

"No... Go..."

Disregarding the disgusting filth around and over her friend, Molly slipped a hand under his neck. His head that lolled limply, his face resting against Molly's arm crux. She noticed how Grey tensed the moment she forced his frail frame to lean forward. Molly heard Grey mutter "Please, go," under his breath.

"Not a chance," she replied, making sure that nothing would touch his broken nose but at the same time trying to get him up and out of there. Charles Grey was not a large man, but he was heavy enough that moving him into her car would be difficult. That was her plan now. As soon as she had him safely in her car, she could think about the next step.

A sudden fear assaulted Molly. Grey could have an internal injury. Was he merely drunk, stoned out of his mind, or was it something more serious?

The evidence was around the tell-tale mattress. If Grey had a problem, it could have been going on for weeks. It wouldn't be the first time nor would it be the last that someone on SF went looking for an easy relief of their overwhelming stress. It was a common topic of concern of many army wives of her church group. Naloxone, the drug used to counteract the effect of opioids was a common back counter trade between some of them and a friendly church member doctor sympathetic to their cause.

Molly hauled them both to their feet, Charlie staggering in her grasp but bearing his own weight. A glint of stray light caught her eye: a glimpse of two empty syringes that looked marginally cleaner than the rest. It was the words that most interested her: Nalaxone. That was final confirmation for her. If Grey was trying to get rid of whatever filth he was fighting, she would be at his side, all the way. Charlie was not only his husband's friend, but hers as well. Charlie Grey had been pivotal in her life more than once during the six years she had known him.

He had been the only one in the Unit, wives included, to realize that something was wrong when she has had her fifth and last crisis with Jonas.

Charlie had stopped by the house after the BBQ, but only when he knew that Jonas had gone out for a final beer with the guys. With some silly excuse of having left his apartment keys behind, he talked his way in to see her.

Molly too had had more than her share of beer. He had let her cry on his shoulder about her fears and demons, had reassured her about Jonas's loyalty and commitment to his family and, above all, had reminded her of all the harshness and loneliness they faced during deployment.

He told her about how he had seen for himself the many times that Jonas's eyes had watered after calling to tell her he was coming home to her, following one more of their life and death missions. He added the tale of how they would all mercilessly tease Jonas, and how in retaliation he would make known loud and clear why Molly was the best companion a man could have, no disrespect to Tiffy and Kim intended.

He had told Molly all of this in his characteristic husky voice and quiet manners that he reserved for the people that he cared about, and just before leaving, he planted a kiss on her cheek while hurriedly whispering in her ear to go check under the bottom seams of Jonas's medkit.

She did. A tiny thin gold chain she thought she had lost long ago was there, two entwined hearts, one smaller than the other, finely carved in wood. It was the final proof that won her heart. Never again did she question her marriage partner.

He continued to be the carefree playa when in mixed company but every now and again, at some special time, he would allow his expressive eyes to cross with hers with a secret understanding, reassuring her that all was well and she could trust him to watch over Jonas and she and Betsy, and dismiss her fears about the Unit operative's more than uncertain future.

What got Charlie into trouble was not important to her eyes. She would be there for him to the bitter end, and nothing else mattered. He was not, and would never be, walking alone on that path, and to hell with the Unit and its macho unwritten code if, God forbid, she ever got to know that they turned their backs on Grey.

"Come on, come on... Help me---get you---up..." Grey was breathing heavily through his nose while his hands hooked in her blouse, in a pained effort to knee on the floor so Molly could leverage on it and get him up straight. "Get up... Get up...!"


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 4

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

"Spill it." Ryan gave Master Sergeant Jonas Blane a short lived stare before continuing to write on the report on his desk.

"You have nothing to fear. I'll make sure of it.," Jonas stood at attention.

"Make it short."

"What happened... It's all about faith and commitment, the very qualities that make the world change. And, yes, sometimes someone has to die for greater things to come. It's a faith you understand. God understands what we have to do in order to continue. Grey's commitment and the fact that God had chosen to spare him, isn't good enough for us to settle this thing here and now?"

"I said make it short." Ryan studied him again in that way of his that always got Jonas pissed off.

"Grey was not the conduit to get to them. Do not go further with this. Sir," Jonas tacked on.

"Save it. I will."

"I had the ground. I had control. I did what I believed to be right at the time..." Jonas now favored his colonel with a deep stare. "I make no apology for that. What happened wasn't about a man, it was about saving the mission and the team."

"You were on the ground. It was your call. But you didn't follow the code. Grey didn't follow the code. This is what you get now."

"I want that you call it on me then."

"And I want the truth!" Ryan said forcefully.

"Not in your present position, sir. We use words like honor, code, and loyalty but there was none of that in what we had to do in Baz-el Had. "

"You didn't honor the code! You didn't do your job. You'll do it again."

"No."

"Sergeant Major Blaine!"

"Is Sergeant Grey being charged with a crime?"

"He put other people's lives in danger."

"Is Sergeant Grey being charged with a crime?"

"The Army doesn't need Grey as much as it does need you." Ryan reclined himself slowly, giving Jonas time to let it all sink in.

"If you doubt me, how can it be---"

"You—are—excused."

"I did what I considered best and Grey did nothing many others didn't do in the past." Jonas couldn't help himself but clear his throat just then.

"Yes, he did! He was supposed to fight for people who couldn't fight for themselves. That's what is expected of him at all times. Special ops or not. 18 of our men were left exposed to a certain death."

"You have been in the field yourself, you know how---"

"I know what "you" were supposed to do, what you didn't do back there, as Grey didn't have the guts to do it by himself. We do not leave anyone behind."

"Alive, you mean." Jonas could hardly disguise the disgust in his voice.

"Whatever it takes. You swore to that." Ryan statement was firm and clear and admitted no discussion.

"We left him inside a thirty foot deep pit in the middle of nowhere for God's sake! Either we came back for him in time or nobody would have found him there. Grey would have never surrendered; he would have eaten the gun before anyone could lay hands on him."

"That's what you think. But what I know is that somehow Grey panicked and got out from there before you came back for him. One month later he appeared at my back door in Landstuhl, a bundle of nerves, beaten to pulp, just a few days after all of B and C Teams got busted. What would you like me to think, Sergeant Major?"

"Grey would NEVER—"

"You want me to believe he got out of hell in exchange for nothing?" Ryan barked. "You might not know Grey as well as you think you do. Not anymore."

"He is a bit of a hothead sometimes---"

"You are excused!"

"Shit happens, Tom---"

"And you want me to clean it with my bare hands. Not about to happen, Sergeant Major. You are excused!!"


	5. Chapter 5

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 5

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

Grey was vaguely aware of motion. He woozily realized that he was still lying down and yet he couldn't shake the sensation of motion, of air moving past him as he travelled. He felt hot, his head was pounding, his mouth dry. A car, he was in the back seat of Molly's car. Through a mist of pain and dizziness, Charles Grey thought wryly how Molly always seemed to be ready for anything, unflinching, inwardly wincing as his words slurred together. "Molly... I need a sanctuary... for a few days..." The weakness he felt betraying him.

Did Molly just give him an accusatory glance? Charlie swayed uncomfortably on the car's back seat and gazed through the rear mirror into Molly's kind and warm eyes with uncertainty, wondering if involving her was such a good idea. Briefly Molly returned his stare coolly but with emotion flickering within the depths of her irises.

Molly turned the car onto the driveway of an unfamiliar house. She pulled the car into the garage.

"Can you get out on your own, while I look for the key and close the garage door?"

Charles could only manage a silent nod and stumble out of the car and into the house before Molly's strong, steady hand gripped his shoulder to guide him a minute afterwards. Blood and grime, he noted regretfully, was tracked across the meticulously clean floor. Thankfully Molly did not mention it. Instead, she gently sat him down on a chair and knelt in front of him, peering intently into his eyes.

Charlie stared back achingly exhausted. "I am not drunk or drugged..."

"I was not asking." As if too aware of what she had seen in the shack, Molly gave Charlie a reassuring squeeze on the arm and left.

A dizzy relief threatened to drown him as he sat in the lonely dining room. Truthfully, he was momentarily troubled that he had made a mistake allowing Molly in, but he shouldn't have doubted her. Molly always understood with his still imperceptible nods and expressive eyes. She understood the pressure. She was the only one capable of distinguishing the individual intricacies of each member of the Unit, at times understanding them better than they did themselves. She understood what he needed.

He exhaled noisily, trying to remember to breathe slowly as he calmed his nerves and the pangs of soreness. It was second nature in Molly when to press an issue, and she knew that right now it was too soon to question him about the miserable state in which she found him. So when Molly re-entered Charlie's line of vision, he offered her a wan smile and Molly returned the sentiment with the slightest wrinkle of her eyes and a cautious blink.

Molly leaned across him, a package of cotton swabs in one hand and a bottle of disinfectant in the other. Charlie's smile faltered at Molly's worried expression when she fixed her stare on his face and then his arms and hands.

"It isn't that bad," he reassured her. To her credit, Molly's calm demeanor didn't waver, not that Charlie expected it to.

"I put a plastic stool in the shower. I think it would be better if you can make it there and clean yourself a bit before taking care of the rest. This is Judy's house; A friend of mine. She is out of town at the moment and won't be back for at least a week. You can stay here."

The effects of blood loss and a mild hypothermia kicked in, and, cursing, he felt himself begin to tremble.

"Charlie?"

He refocused his eyes upon the pair that were burning with resolve under the dim lights. The smoldering eyes darted in the direction of his hands and Charlie took that as a cue, unclenching his fists, relaxing his muscles, refusing to give in to his body's demands.

"It's cool, Molly.... It's OK...M'good."

The doubt was clear to see, but Molly only nodded in acceptance. "I left a hoodie and some other old clothes from Judy's husband in the bathroom. Use the white towels; they'll be the easiest to replace once they're stained from the blood. I'm thinking that it would be best if my friend never knew you were here."

"I can manage by myself now, Molly. M'good. Really. Go." He hauled himself back to his feet, aches in every part of his body, shuffling in the direction of the hot shower.

He found her waiting for him in the living room. She'd never left, he realized. A hot brew waiting for him. That gentle gesture touched his heart.

She stirred herself. "I am going to get you some food and some bandages. Anything else you might need?"

"That should be good. But don't come back until tomorrow morning, Molly. I need to sleep."

"Send a message to my cell if---"

"I will. You're the best, Molly."

Molly's face melted in a warm smile. Charlie nodded back and positioned himself flat on his back against the cushioned sofa and Molly lightly squeezed his right shoulder in support, a quiet meaning 'Rest now.' Charlie watched her go and immediately slid himself onto the floor, to avoid staining any of the fabric with any open wounds. It was the least he could do for Molly and her friend.

What make him feel comfortable was to know that Molly wouldn't be asking useless questions but would immediately understand and react to the situation. She wouldn't offer to take him to a hospital or to ask him if it hurt, because she already knew the first was not an option for him and the second was a fact. She wouldn't offer him words of comfort that could embarrass him. She did her part efficiently the same way she expected Charlie to take his pain and suck it up as an unavoidable part of the process.

Right now he needed time and a clear head. _Badly_. To think it all over. Consider his options. All he needed was a few hours rest, and he could be far away before Molly came back the next morning.

He pulled the hood over his head to avoid losing any heat and avoiding contact of the still open wounds on his face with the floor, rolled over onto his side, and let himself slip into oblivion with his head against his arms.

* * *

It felt like waking up.

But if he was waking up, why was he on the floor, next to a couch?

Confused, Grey looked around. He was alone. Dusk was blanketing the trees and bushes with heavy shadows out in the garden. More out of reflex than clear thought, he placed one palm on the couch he laid next to. With flailing hands he found the edge of the couch to grab, and he tried to drag himself towards it, huddle against it.

Cold. It was so cold. Someone opened the door. Jonas stared at the hooded figure before him, the puffy eyes, the broken nose and cuts and bruises on Grey's face.

Grey was watching him with his eyes still wide, his breathing harsh, quick. When Jonas reached out, he flinched violently.

"Woah, hey, easy," Jonas hastened to assure him. "It's me, s'okay. It's me. Everything will be fine."

Jonas tried again to touch him and was shocked to find Grey duck away from his hand, pressing as far into the corner between the couch and the wall as he could.

Concerned, Jonas pulled back. Only now did he see that Grey's right wrist was badly bruised, his nose bloodied and clearly swollen. The dismayed frown on his face deepened.

"Top," Grey replied, ducking his head away to hide a wince. "Get off..."

Jonas allowed his hand to remain lightly in a soothing gesture on Grey's arm for a moment, then closed his fingers around it. "I'll explain everything," he said. "Let's get you out of here."

"I don't know what they told you—" Now that he'd said a longer sentence, Jonas could clearly hear a strain in the smaller man's voice. Jonas gripped Grey's arm more firmly and pulled him up. Once more Jonas saw the man grimace when he moved.

Seeing Grey struggle to get his feet under him, Jonas reached out with his other arm and was dismayed to cause a frightened flinch, even more violently than the first time, with Grey immediately pulling away in terror. Reflexively, Jonas lifted his hands as if to show he was unarmed and meant no harm.

"It's OK, it's OK," he offered, thinking he somehow sounded pretty afraid himself.

Grey threw him a quick look and held out his own hands. "Help me." It sounded like an apology.

Jonas took one hand and gently steadied Grey's elbow with his other, helping him up. Grey didn't quite straighten, but remained hunched over, chin tucked close to his chest. Hiding his pain.

"You OK?" Jonas asked.

"Take me to the bathroom." Grey croaked, as if he hadn't heard.

Jonas didn't protest, didn't comment.

Behind the bathroom door, Jonas heard water running, quiet groans that refused to remain inside. Glass clinking. A low moan. A cough. Spitting. Jonas's eyes wandered to the floor, and saw spots of blood on the ground at Grey's feet.

It was time. He'd given Grey his moment. He pushed open the door. "Everything's okay. Let me take care of you."

It was clear that Grey had tried to wash the new blood oozing from his lips and nose from his face. It had only resulted in having the blood smeared all over his pale skin, the dark red in stark contrast with the shiny obsidian black eyes and purpling bruises.

Moments went by.

Jonas's breath flattened. Grey closed his eyes, opened them again. When he spoke, only a whisper came, "I just fixed my nose. M'good."

He thought he could see Jonas nod, but his vision blurred for a second. Only when he felt the suddenly filled glass being pressed into his mouth did he realize he was shaking. He put it back down on the sink. There was new blood on the bathroom floor.

Another whisper. "You fixed your nose and now it's time you spit out that razor blade you are hiding inside your mouth. With all that twitching of your cheeks you'll cut yourself a nerve or worse."

Grey's eyes squeezed shut as if by their own will. His head felt like it was being pressed down by something heavy. He should have known that Jonas would realize what he was doing.

He felt Jonas's hand on his shoulder. He jerked away.

"Relax. I mean you no harm. I'm here to help you. Just spit it out."

Grey forced himself to lift his head, to meet Jonas's eyes. He hadn't known he was as badly chewed up as he felt right then until he saw it mirrored in Jonas' face. He pulled out the bloody razor he'd stolen from the cabinet. His last hope of an advantage against Jonas. Blackness wavered at the edges of his vision.

"It's okay," Jonas said softly, his hands moving up under Grey's armpits to have a hold of him when he saw him swaying. "Everything's fine now."

Grey's eyes stared out from inside the hood, shouting a silent question to Jonas through the bathroom's cabinet mirror: "Am I gonna make it?"

It was so quick and unexpected that Grey almost didn't feel the sharp prick on his thigh. All crumbled inside him. Whatever Jonas had pushed him with was having an effect rather quickly. He stared accusingly at Jonas, feeling the last remnants of consciousness slip away. "I was trying to keep everyone safe," Grey murmured. "I got it wrong..." He managed to make to words before he felt he wasn't being able to talk any longer.

Nothing mattered anymore. He knew he had a few seconds before he lost all control over himself. He had seen it in others; his had been the hand that had delivered the bad news. Charles Grey said his silent goodbye to life and made a final effort to unfocus his eyes. His last image would not be that of his own fear staring back at him from the mirror. Instead, he forced his mind to remember those last holidays in Ohope Beach with Hector and his then girlfriend. And was still in time to imagine himself diving deep into the sea before losing all control over his mind too.

Jonas hold Grey's forehead with one of his hands, bringing it up to him. "You fucked up big time there, bro..." He put both arms around Grey's chest and gripped hard, involving him in a tight embrace as Grey's body jerked his last, muscles spasming, fighting and losing its final battle. Seconds afterwards, Carlito's body went limp and Jonas let him gently slip to the floor.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 6

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

Seconds afterwards Carlito's body went limp, Jonas checked his neck. There was a strong pulse. Working quickly, he stripped Grey of his clothing, leaving nothing on him. Arms, neck, head, face, legs: Jonas examined every exposed inch on Grey's flesh. He even peered into some dark cavities, mouth included, to make sure he'd gotten it all.

Jonas hurried; he needed to extricate Grey and himself from the impromptu safe house, just in case Molly decided to come back to check on Grey before dawn. It had not been that difficult to second guess his spouse. He could read her like an open book, though he would never let her know. It just took changing his car to be able to follow her unawares.

Jonas tightened his lips when he rolled Grey face down. There wasn't an inch on Grey's back that didn't bear some testament to the brutality that Ryan had referred to. The criss-crossed slashes of a whip or cane ran the length of the back down to his legs. He continued his examination; three of Grey's nails were half missing in his left hand, four broken in different places in his right. There were the traces of a recent beating, mostly on his face, ribcage and groin. Jonas couldn't resist and re-set Grey's broken nose once again himself now that the younger soldier was out for the count. The rest would have to wait till they were in a more secure place...

Mack appeared silently from the direction of the kitchen.

"You took your time."

"Couldn't make it faster without attracting too much attention in this neighborhood." Mack took in the same details that Jonas had uncovered. He bit off a curse. "They did a damn number on him, Top. It hurts just to look at it. He is pretty chewed up... What do you think really happened, Jonas?"

"Does it matter?"

"It's just focus on the here and now, then?"

"He could have given us up. He lied to all of us."

"But when he lied to the brass he covered for us, Boss."

"Look at this." Jonas turned Grey's limp body over to expose the evidence to Mack. "See? If he had been on the other side of the wall, he would have been hit by a storm of flying glass and masonry. Nothing. He didn't put the charges. Damn fool. He didn't do it."

"Man..."

"The weakest link in any security chain is always the human factor. He did not follow orders. Now he can't face it. Maybe it is all about he is lying to himself about it. "

"We are all in the shit then. We could be court martialed for this. Sweet, Geezuz..."

"No rush, Mack. If we've got a drama waiting for us out there, we'll find out soon enough. We need to take everything slow and calm." Jonas shut the door leading to the garage. "First things first. If they go ahead and charge him for giving away B and C teams' positions, they'll lock him in some dark hole and throw away the key. We loose all control over the situation."

Jonas made his way back and squatted to take one of Grey's hands into his. "See his nails? They weren't pulled out like the report said."

"People see what they expect to see."

"They're torn; broken. Not proof of torture. It seems he did some digging without a spade." Jonas paused, thinking.

"Another day in the office, huh, Boss? The four of us together in the middle of nowhere." Mack rested a hand on Jonas' shoulder. "The pit story that Carlito made to cover for us was a piece of genius. Totally worthy of Carlito at 4 am closing Freddy's."

"Well, Ryan believed it. All of it. As did the shrink that questioned Grey back in Germany."

"Same two that all gobbled up the Firm's intel about Carlito talking too much down there. It was perfect to cover DC screwing up another mission."

"I'd like to think that Grey had nothing to do with that screw up, Mack, but we don't know that for sure yet. Maybe he did. It was inside info they used to attack B and C teams. We'll find out soon."

"Maybe Carlito is acting strange 'cause he's cutting away, you know. No drama. Keeping a lid on things his way. We didn't give him any credit and let him do the explaining at his own pace. Any needle marks? Have you checked?"

"None too fresh or too old. Just the ones from the IVs and bloodwork from the hospital. Nothing IM either."

"See..." Mack still resented their lack of support to Grey.

"Dunno. But you had to see what was around him in his hole in Fayetteville."

"Maybe it wasn't his."

"Some naloxone, too. How many drug addicts you know that treat themselves with naloxone? I'd say those were his."

"Physical evidence doesn't back up what the Landstuhl medical report told Ryan there was. Let's see what Bobbo can dig out of his hospital records."

Jonas moved onto the next concern. "Brought the body bag?"

"Yep. Made a few holes in it, just in case. Got a couple of blankets, too. Tiffy is gonna kill me."

"Let's roll then. We'd better be in the old compound before noon. Got to let them see all three of us at the gym or the shooting range for a while after that."

"Bob is already covering for us. He passed my ID. He is trying to retrieve Grey's case file, too."

"Good boy. We don't need that floating around from desk to desk right now. Not before we set it straight among ourselves."

Mack watched Grey sleep, his chest rising and falling with slow, easy movements. With all that dried blood spattered over his face and the big black bruising all around his eyes, Grey's visage looked like the mask of some satanic cult. But his swollen features were calm and relaxed.

Earlier, it had been impossible to make the man understand that he was safe and among friends. It hurt to realize how messed up Carlito's mind had been to doubt them.

"Ever tell you how I met Carlito, Top?"

"You have not, Mack."

Mack couldn't take his eyes off the unconscious topic of discussion. "It was before I knew he was going to be on Alpha team, during a joint training. One of the biggest jokers in the Unit hold out a grenade with no security pin and let it drop at my feet. This hothead now in the black plastic suit saw it, ran for it, and gave it a tremendous kick sending it up in the sky."

"Mack..."

"The pineapple went through a full arc and ended up in the middle of the parking lot outside the fence. It was real funny and everybody had a big laugh," Mack paused, remembering. "I liked him even more when he was the first one to make fun of his own stunt and share the run riot that followed."

"Mack. Zip him and let's go." Jonas felt relief they were finally regaining some control over the situation since the events on Bar-el-Had. "Come on, man."

There was a slight tremor in Grey's cheeks when Mack covered him with the blanket. "Jonas, look. He is smiling. He is frigging smiling. Can you believe it?" When he looked up to Jonas, the depth of the sadness oozing from his friend's eyes washed away the little that was left of that brief moment of levity. The same sense of dread took hold of him too, a vivid image of Hector forming before his eyes, and Mack couldn't force his hands to zip the bag completely.


	7. Chapter 7

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 7

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

"Mack," Grey's voice was nothing more than a hoarse croak but relief showed on Mack's face as he visibly sagged.

"It is good to see you back with us, buddy." Mack unfolded himself from the wooden crate that he was sitting on, stretching muscles that hadn't moved in far too long.

Grey answered with a woozy smile of his own. Mack held a cup to Grey's mouth, feeling his initial concern ease. The fact that Carlito had regained a consciousness slowly was a sure sign that his fellow soldier knew himself safe, a thought that allowed him to drift back into drowsy awareness that his body much preferred to instant combat alertness. Mack knew the feeling well, had known other times himself where the subsequent discovery of drugs and pain and IV-lines were secondary.

"Hey..."

"Shit, I'm down... I'm... down..." Grey was groaning like a drunk. He grimaced, screwing his eyes shut as he tried to chase the overwhelming flood of memories, unraveling to the sudden stillness of his own body and the knowledge that he was not in danger anymore.

"You're OK. No worries. You're OK. We're in the old compound. You're safe." Mack could see a certain relief in Grey's eyes, and he was comforted to see that the man wasn't that out of it.

"Kiff... " Grey hissed softly.

"What?"

"Kiff..." The dim light was just enough to see Grey's hands moving, grabbing the blanket that covered him.

"Keith? Who is Keith?"

"Kiff... Saw... Kiff..." Grey tried to focus his eyes again but his pupils were dilated, unable to see his rescuer clearly. "I saw him, Mack. He is good..." His right hand plucked weakly at Mack's shirt, the IV line pulling from the catheter on his arm.

"God... Oh, God, man... Hector is not— Hector---" Mack faced Carlito, lines of pain etched across his face. "Let go."

"Saw... him..."

After untangling Grey's hand from his shirt and tuck it under the blanket again Mack immediately put a hand over Grey's forefront."You're burning with fever, pal." Frowning, Mack pulled the blanket back and uncovered Grey completely, releasing the heat into the air around them.

"Mack. He is here. Is... here..." Grey stared at him with a fading look on his face.

"Stop! Just an hallucination, bro... Hector is dead."

"Hector is here... See?... Kiff..."

"He is not here, Charlie..."

"I've been with him... Kiff... He is fine..."

"Man... Hear me--- Hear me. You've got a high fever... It's the fever."

"We were together... on the... beach... Kiff... is coming back... to the unit... He is Ok... He told me..."

"Charlie-Charlie-Charlie---" Mack wiped away the beads of sweat on Grey's forehead.

"It was all a mistake... He is just fine... See? Kiff---"

"Whatever, pal. You'll feel better in a while."

"He looks great... You'll see."

"OK. Shut your trap now. No more talk." Mack gave a worried rub to Grey's unruly hair with one hand while checking his pulse with the other. "Your pulse is running like a meth dealer from the Feds, bro. Jonas will be back soon. We'll fix you up in no time."

"Hector is coming back... It was just a nick on his neck... He couldn't talk... See? That's why he couldn't call us..."

"I miss him too, pal. Come on, now. Just shut up and go back to sleep." Mack ordered gruffly, placing his hands on Grey's shoulders.

"He said... you wouldn't believe it..."

"Don't make me tell you again. Enough. That's an order, sergeant. Ok?" Mack's tone was gentle and calm, his hands still firm on his shoulders. Grey's haunted eyes searched Mack's face, hunting for the truth that Mack was quick to give. A look; a sigh, and Carlito went limp. The smaller man had nothing left in him.

"Go back to sleep..."

A grunt was the only answer before Carlito dutifully closed again his eyes and turned his head to the other side.

"Gojka... Gojka too..."

"Gojka? Hey! Wake up! What did you say?" That was not a name that Mack wanted to hear.

"Huh?"

"Gojka. What did you say about Gojka?" Grey was losing consciousness. Close to his ear, Mack whispered urgently, "It's OK, you can talk now."

There was no response. "Grey! Come on, bro, talk to me. We're alone. You can tell me. Tell me about Gojka!" Mack tugged on his sideburns. "Carlito, wake up!!"

Still no movement, barely a breath to show that Grey was still alive.

"Open your eyes... Look at me. Show me your eyes. That's it. That's it." Grey's eyes fluttered, vacant. Mack took Grey's head by the hair, forcing him to look back at him. "Gojka. Did you find Gojka in Baz-el-Had?" Grey looked back at him, eyes unfocussed, and nodded his head without speaking.

"You saw Gojka?" Mack demanded once again.

Grey shuddered, hard, a full-body tremble that shocked the old military cot. Mack grabbed the blanket that he had discarded, wrapping it tightly around his brother soldier. He could feel Carlito drifting away while his dark watering eyes keep staring at him in a silent plea, a deep groan surging from within.

Flashback! Mack knew the signs, knew the hell that Carlito was going through even if Mack didn't know the demons that skittered through the nightmare. Mack grabbed Grey's wrists, both of them, like Grey's life depended on it, and sat by his side, keeping him safe, until the adrenalin ebbed and floated away taking all of Grey's strength along with it.

Limp—Mack couldn't help but check the man's pulse one last time. There it was, fast but slowing as Grey shifted into a deep and restful sleep.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 8

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

_Restricted wing of Fort Bragg's military hospital. 12 days ago._

"_It's all right, buddy," _The memories came flooding back: Grey could all but hear his own voice from a month ago in Baz-el-Had, soothing Gojka, tricking him into darkness, his right hand sealing Gojka's mouth and nose while his left increased the pressure on his neck, Gojka putting up the fight of a five year old._ "Don't freak out. Just putting you to sleep. You'll sleep now. Don't freak out. Remember to dream. Just dream."_ Grey knew that this image was the one that would stay with him; the one that was going straight to the top of the list of his sweaty, guilty, wake-up-in-the-early-hours nightmares. The ones that he had just told Ferris, the unit shrink, he didn't have. _Emotions are a liability for an operator... Fucking true._

Dr. Ferris's high pitched voice snapped him out of his reverie.

"I understand it was pretty rough for you down there, Sergeant." The unit shrink was seated by Grey's bed in his secluded hospital room, face blank.

"Another day in the office. No worries." Grey kept his own face equally as blank as the shrink's.

"You all right?"

"All right?"

"How do you feel?"

"No feelings."

"Everybody has got feelings."

"Feelings get you killed."

"We aren't going anywhere unless we have complete trust, Sergeant." Which meant that Ferris wasn't about to make this easy for him. "I came to see you and have the regulation debrief session here in the hospital. Colonel Ryan seems to be in favor of seeing you gear up soon." Dr. Ferris leaned forward. "He can't count on you if there is a possibility that you are 'toast'."

"I am not toasted, doc. OK, so maybe I'm not one hundred percent fine, but I'm pretty close, sir. I'm good to go." If Ryan wanted him back soon, maybe he might be looking at a brighter outcome than expected. All he had to do was convince this shrink that he could hack it. Piece of cake.

"You look a bit edgy for my taste."

"Dr. Ferris. Sir. I guess that I had enough poking and prodding since I arrived this morning. The sooner everybody realizes I'm the same man I was four weeks ago, the better. What I really need is some undisturbed hours of sleep."

"I can help you with that."

"Just a warm blanket and some place dark and quiet will do, sir." Grey directed his eyes up at the stained acoustical tiles on the ceiling.

"It says in your medical record you are refusing medication."

"It's those tranks I don't want." Grey tilted his head to the side. "Make me feel sicker than I already am."

"But you need to rest, Sergeant."

Grey nodded in agreement. "Then discharge me from hospital, sir. As I said, there's hardly an hour in the day when there aren't some medical personnel with their hands on me since I arrived."

"I am not here to hurt you. I came to help you. So are they. I think you might be more affected than you think." Dr. Ferris leaned forward on his chair and rested his elbows on his knees. "I understand. You know I do. Your life is all about holding things inside and not showing your feelings. I know it's not easy to let your emotions out. How do you cope?"

"With what?"

"Being on the verge of death. Having been left behind by your team. What can you tell me about that?"

"Nothing. OPSEC."

"Don't give me that, Sergeant. I cannot discharge you if I don't deem you fit for duty. Find a way around."

"We were exfiling on foot, I was in bad shape. I kept stopping, falling over; I lost my team a couple of times, they went back for me and went back for me again. What finally happened was that a decision had to be made. They had to leave me and move on or there were going to be all four of us dead." He'd already told this once, at Landstuhl. He needed to keep the details the same—it was the details that would hang him.

"They left you to die."

"Most probably."

"They had to go on to save themselves, didn't they?

"I don't think it was anybody's fault. I would have done the same."

"You don't blame them for leaving you behind? You're leaving your friend, your teammate, your comrade behind to die alone and cold in the depth of a pit, in the desert."

"I don't blame them. It's what they had to do. They made the right call."

"Do you blame Colonel Ryan, for not sending another extraction team?"

"No. I've known my commanding officer for a number of years, and he is not a man to waste anybody's life. He cares about his men and he would have done everything in his power to make sure that everybody got out alive. But at the same time, he would not risk other people's lives when he was unclear of the situation." So far, so good.

"But if your team left you behind in a hidden spot it's because you were meant to be found. Why did you move to a position where they couldn't find you, in case they came back for you?"

"Look, sir, this is as far I can go with this." This was the line that would take him out of any of Ferris's traps, same as it had in the past.

"And your back? Your legs? What can you tell me about that?" Dr. Ferris persisted.

"It was a punishment." Repressed pain and hurt was pouring out of Grey's intense stare just before he looked away not to meet the shrink's eyes. Clearly he would have spared himself that.

"You call that a punishment? Looks more like torture to me." Dr. Ferris couldn't make his eyes quit those of Grey though.

"It was not, sir. They caught me stealing. That's the law in that side of the world. Who am I to interfere with a 3,000 years culture? "

"Sure that's how you feel about it?"

"Didn't I already say that?"

"Your torn off nails tell another story." Dr. Ferris's concerned look zeroed in on Grey instantly.

Grey wouldn't let that opportunity pass by. He would confess something shocking to satisfy Ferris. Take the easy way out, something that would make no difference to anyone else. He could deal with the rest at his own pace. It had been a weakness he wouldn't fall for again, wanting Ferris's professional help and finding just a few pills down along the road from him like he did a year ago.

"So you want to know the little dirty details, sir? That make it better for you? No big deal at all. I decided to spare Dog Patch the exfil. When I got my strength back I got out of my hiding hole. Did some shape-shifting and I was playing my deaf-and-dumb-poor-street-scum routine to avoid being questioned while making it out of the hot zone. They caught me stealing a pair of boots in a border town. A bunch of hyped up thugs got me strapped to a dusty table and gave me a good few with a cane or an antennae or something." Grey's tone was firm and no-nonsense. He could have been talking about someone else's ordeal, for all the emotion he showed. "Took them as stoically as I could. Yes, it hurt. Like a mother. Then they rubbed some salt over it and it showed big time it hurt and that made them happier. I paid my dues with that. It's over. Endgame."

"I understand."

"And yeah... Maybe I left some of my DNA embedded in that table, as you guessed but---."

"Did they go "_further_", Sergeant?" Grey's eyes didn't roam anymore, they looked where they wanted to look and stayed there until they'd seen enough. He needed to confess something really outrageous to Ferris to get out of this one or the shrink would keep on drilling on him till he hit his soft spot for real, and that would be the end for him and his team.

"Did they go "_further_" than that?" Grey took a deep breath and nodded, having a furtive look to his abused fingers.

Ferris didn't need to hear what he could read in Grey's body language, and Grey was too relieved to be able to convey whatever Ferris wanted to think.

"There was not a hint of it when you passed your physical at Landstuhl."

"There was no tell. Didn't want it written in black and white, all the red tape involved to get me on a flight back home, either. I was fine. Just the blood work worries me. If all is good with the blood work I am good too."

"This is gonna leave a mark." Ferris kept his eyes locked on his.

"Doesn't it always..." Grey shrugged back.

"I would neither needlessly nor pointlessly dispatch you into danger so soon. However, it seems as though the brass wants you back in action." Ferris leaned forward once more, making his point very clear. "Be honest with me and, foremost, with yourself. Sweats, flashbacks, panic attacks...?"

"No. Nothing. Really, I'm good. Unscathed. It's over and done with. And I should thank you for that." Grey was proud just then for the new turn he was introducing into their conversation. Ferris would love to feel part of the team, feeling he had been in the sand, in the mix.

"Me? How come?"

"It was that technique you told us about transporting to another plane that helped me volumes through it all. It really works."

"OK. I'll take your word for it." Grey's presence of mind seemed to mollify Ferris that it was not necessary to push the matter further--not now, at least. "But let's grant you some rest for real. I shall make certain this time that you get a few hours of rest. Midazolam will do. Just a warm blanket of peace and quiet on your mind. Just plain sound sleep. No dreams."

"Don't need it. I am not a dreamer. I do not dream. Have no trouble sleeping either."

"Shall I make it an order?"

"No. Wouldn't recommend it, sir. No drugs." Grey shook his head.

"Not a drug. It's a medication your body needs right now. Badly."

"No."

"I cannot discharge you if I don't not consider you fit for duty."

"But I am."

"You know regulations. I'll be reviewing your medical record tomorrow with Ryan. So we better smooth the things out between ourselves today."

"Let me do the same without the midazolam."

"You are a medic. You know perfectly well midazolam is a good option right now for yourself. A blanket of "nothingness" on your mind to give time to your body to heal. To come to terms with it all."

"I am good."

"You know that in the field, sometimes, you won't feel the hit, but if you see blood—"

"Yeah, you better get out your pressure bandage and apply it fast."

"Just as I said. Look, better safe than sorry. If you don't do it for you, do it for your team. You're too much hyped up for your own good. I can tell as much. I won't send you out into the field a bundle of nerves."

Grey figured he had been pretty good at keeping people at arm's length ever since he was a kid. It had kept him going and it helped avoid disappointment. It was a must with Ferris, definitively. Win some, lose some.

"I'd never been the world's best when it comes to being taken care of."

"But I know you excel at taking care of others. That's good enough for me." Ferris stood up slowly. "I'm assigned to the unit exclusively. You could say I am one of yours, so trust my judgment at face value. Take it as if I was your team medic for a while. I'll ask that they hook you up to your heart and pressure monitor again and I'll instruct this wing personnel to let you rest undisturbed, just to have a look at your vitals from time to time. I'll give you the shot myself and monitor you so that there aren't any adverse reactions afterwards so that there are no records left behind in your medical chart. Does that settle it for you? "

"Thank you, sir."

"Make yourself comfy while I get back to you." Ferris came to the room's door. "The psyche, you can never rush it, it takes its time to work things through, to help you make the right decisions. When I am sure you have had your rest, you can go home. Two days R & R, and then back to duty."

"That's what I want, sir."

"What you went through back there—" Ferris paused half way through the door, searching Grey's face. "It was just a technique of subjugation. What you've really got to remember is that by doing your hard bit in the field you probably saved many lives. Never belittle your sacrifice."

Whatever problem Grey could have had, it was over now. He knew he had won Ferris for his cause with his shameful confession and he could take a shortcut back to the unit. He could sort things out with Mack, Jonas and Bob. Something big was coming up, and Ryan needed him. Badly. And that was to be his "get-out-of-jail" free card even if Ferris wasn't one hundred percent convinced of his being fit for duty.

When Ferris left the room, Grey's eyes flicked towards the corridor window to see him disappear. The midazolam was bad news. He had to let himself slip into the Midazolam-induced haze with a blank and immaculate mind. He had seen enough midazolam- induced hallucinations after surgery as a field medic. He hoped that he wouldn't go that far as to spill the beans on any of the cumulated filth in his head over his coma-induced holidays. After all, the heart of his fiction was non-fiction.

He rolled off the bed and went to look for what little privacy the bathroom would grant him. He left the lights off, wanting the dark, his hands gripping firmly on the shower handrail. His hospital scrubs were stripped in a swift move, and he let the cold water wash the fine film of sweat from his skin. He knew he needed the cold pins and needles of the water lashing against his tender back to keep him focused on the here and now. His heart was thumping wildly and he knew that an unstoppable wave of dread would wash over him any minute if he couldn't calm down. He let himself slip to the shower floor, his eyes struggling in the dark to find any crack on a tile, something small to focus on for a minute, anything that would help him to wipe out his mind, to keep him from feeling, to transport himself to another alternate universe, a secure one, where he would be spared from reliving Gojka's death spasms, jerking feebly in Charlie's grip.


	9. Chapter 9

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 9

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

_It had been a difficult swim. There was a rip tide__, and he'd swum against it for almost an hour. He was exhausted, cold and wracked with pain in his back and face... He could feel coral scraping at this legs and hip. Blood flowed and the sea water bite at his cuts but the subsiding pain made another fresh groan escape from him. All he wanted was to lie down somewhere that didn't rock, and sleep. _

_[Something is wrong…my hands are wet…with blood… sea is not washing it away, sea should take it away, sea salt is supposed to smart but heal the wounds,...] _

_The dark clouds in the sky disappeared and he saw the blood dripping from his hands onto a a white and black soccer ball, his breathing accelerating, his eyes staring at the red bloody ball._

_[Oh! The kids! This ball is from Baz-el-Had kids...]_

_He would keep it to get it back to them. He could hear the kids from inside the pit, kicking a ball and yelling at each other. The pitch of their voices changed as one probably missed. Inside the pit their sound arrived muffled or maybe it was because the sound was heard differently because of the water he was in. He was wet and miserably cold. How one could be so cold in the middle of a desert?_

_[Kids! What were kids doing here? It is a K's training camp. What are children doing here? Go away! Go away!]_

Every now and then he felt being manhandled with the well known prick of a needle on his hip followed by a sharp burning sensation and a slow lethargy creeping over him, pushing him back down into darkness.

He'd managed to surface to awareness once or twice since then. But each time he tried to fight it back he always was sucked into the next black hole until that dreadful bang that sent all his senses afire just then.

Suddenly, a quick bright flash of light intruded in his confusion, followed immediately by another loud, rumbling crack that got him back into the here and now, adrenalin spiking.

"Whoa! Whoa!" Bob's hands restrained him from jumping off of the cot. "It's just thunder! Thunder! You're safe!" Bob's hands were firm on his chest, pinning him down. "You're safe, in the old compound. Easy, easy. "

Grey felt trapped, panicked, his breath stuttering in his throat. His back began to burn and that more than anything pulled Grey back to himself, focused his mind. "Get off me!" he finally croaked, his churning stomach erupting.

Bob quickly rolled him to his right side. After a few moments of violent dry heaving, Grey laid back on the cot completely exhausted. His vision was a blur as all around him began to spin.

"Get... off... me..." Grey whispered as he tried to control his breathing to contain the bile that was once again building in the back of his parched throat but as the spinning continued, control became impossible and he started dry heaving again.

When it seemed clear that he was done he was rolled to his back and a cool cloth bathed his face. "Don't... touch... me..."

"How are you feeling?" Bob was digging in his pocket and Grey had the distinct feeling that he would be needled again some time soon and closed his eyes in resignation too weak to put any fight.

"No... Don't..." he rasped, ignoring Bob's enquiry. Charlie was feeling drowsy enough that he didn't object when Bob pried open his eyelids. he owlishly blinked away the bright after-image of the little mag lite Bob was moving before his eyes. Then he was aware of Jonas, and Mack too hovered over him with a bottle of water that he put against his lips. Those first gulps were the ones that make him feel grateful almost to the point of moving him to words, but talking required energy and he was fresh out. His eyes slid closed.

"Is he responsive enough yet?" Jonas' deep voice enquired.

"Give him time, he's been through a lot..." Mack's husky's voice intervened.

With an effort, he forced his eyes open. So there were all the members of the team again reunited: Jonas, Bob and Mack were standing around the cot, talking across him, talking about him but not to him.

"I am no chimp..." They turned to look at him, varying expressions of not understanding on their faces.

"What?" Bob's tone clearly said he thought Grey had lost it.

"Don't treat me... like a chimp..." He was too tired to explain properly. "Talk to me… " escaped his lips as his stomach once again decided to erupt again adding to his misery. He rolled on his side by himself this time. Once he was done he lay back trying to control the moan that threatened to escape his lips. The heaving had aggravated both the increasing headache and back pain.

"Top..." Bob concerned look make it to Grey instantly. The next moment there was nothing; no movement, no sound except his harsh breathing. "Let's follow the protocol; we shot him up with the last of bicillin and half the midazolam. Now that his fever is down, his mind will be clear by morning."

"No! No, man!" There it was again, the panic. "No, Top! Don't! Not this! Not like this!" Grey swallowed it down, adding to the churn in his stomach as he sat down on the couch.

[_Panic would not take hold, not now, not ever. He drew several long deep breaths until his heart no longer felt like it was beating out of his chest and he could speak again without giving himself away]._

"Me and meds don't... pair well... Stop. Please... don't... I will be retching... for the next few hours now that I'm awake. I'm gonna choke in my own vomit... if you sedate me... Don't..."

[_Anything, anything was good enough of an excuse to avoid losing control again.]_

"You need to do as you are told. You should help us." Bob cut him down. "None of this will kill you. It didn't kill you in the hospital, it won't kill you here."

"It makes me feel like shit for days... [_And let's hope it doesn't open up any closed doors, and all hell breaks loose again the lousy way I feel now._] "Top, get me some naloxone. Give me some naloxone. Get this filth out of me!"

"Why this fuss, man?" Bob softened his tone. "You're with us. You're safe. We're keeping an eye on you."

"Top, please..."

"I'm not sure." Jonas looked intently at Grey's ashen face.

"But he is not the best doctor for himself, is he?" Bob insisted. "We need you for Blue Ridge, Carlito," Bob followed. "Take one for the team. You need to get rid of whatever shit you have bottled inside."

"Meaning? Meaning? I'm asking you, Bob. What kind of shit do I've bottled inside?"

"Easy now." Bob cautioned him, holding Carlito's gaze.

"You thinking I'm going through cold turkey or something? You do?"

"Are you?"

"Bob, do you expect me to sit here while you shove dirt in my eyes?" Grey found the strength to sit on the edge of the cot by himself. He wheezed with the effort and fought for breath, the queasy feeling in his guts back.

"You wanna bottle shit up inside, you're in the wrong outfit, the wrong unit. You've got shit to spill, say it now." Bob was making a habit of saying stuff that came a bit too close for comfort.

Grey turned and faced his boss, lines of pain etched across his face. He extended his arm in an invitation. "You want a drug test, Boss? Right here, right now? You want to take blood from my arm yourself? You want me to pee in a cup?"

"What I want you to do is to stop using your mouth and start using your brain." It was brief, but Jonas saw a flash of emotion flickering in Grey's eyes.

"I saw all the filth you were surrounded by in Fayetteville. And the naloxone." Jonas added.

[_So that was it in the end. His own teammates thought he was some kind of an addict from one day to the other. They had forgotten how many times had he refused pain meds in the past, his intense hatred of anything related with narcotics easily showing. And now he was number one addict. Great God! What had happened to all of them?_]

"Got you clean for three days in a row. Enough to pass any unexpected test at the Cave if need be. So, from now on ask me no questions, tell me no lies. Do you understand? Do you understand?" Jonas said forcefully. Grey nodded. In this light, and up close, his dark brown eyes were even more piercing but had a glazed quality on his look that Jonas couldn't falter to notice.

[_It was easy to recognize that_ _Jonas's brain switch was set to Transmit rather than Receive, he better be patient to make his point._]

"Had you been on drugs?" and _Jonas stony expression wavered._

"Just like you told me once, Jonas: if you are aware of the principle and violate it knowingly, it's not a violation. It's called good tactics."

[_Because then it set me free... for a while. Free from the pain, free from the fear, free from feeling anything. Tomorrow I'd be suffering. And thus, tomorrow was the day after, and the day after that_. ]

"The _drugging_ was an advantage so I couldn't feel the pain. And I had a lot of Ks to do to cross to Syria. I used anything I could buy in the street."

"Are you telling me you had not been on drugs since you arrived?"

"No! And you all should know better than judging by the looks of---"

"Don't go that way. You didn't act coherently right after you left the hospital." Bob stepped in.

_[__Definitely, they never read the medical report that "giving wounded troops morphine cuts the risk of developing PTSD". Although Carlito recognized to himself that his crazed thoughts hurling at him were running amok without control or discipline since he left the _hospital.]

"I am telling you I stopped the moment I had the Embassy at sight. Then I waited a couple of days before turning myself in."

_[He got that familiar feeling in the pit of his stomach, the same sensation that always came when shit was __coming. He'd had it as a kid, running away from his stepfather-of-the-day or from the bigger boys who wanted to beat him up or from an angry shopkeeper whose stuff he'd tried to lift. Only that this time, it was a horrible feeling: he knew there was a big payoff about to come, and he was part of it.]_

"You've no idea of the damage you've done. DOD was adamant that the camp had to be finished then. Israelis too. I gave my word to them, and Ryan, that it would. Gave my word to Gojka's wife we'd bring him home." Jonas had the floor and he was taking advantage of it. "I can't believe I had put so much confidence in you."

Grey was silent for a few seconds while that sank in, breathing heavily, eyes bulging, Jonas steely eyes piercing his. But he would not back away. Not this time. Grey tilted his head to one side, his bright eyes giving Jonas his silent but clear answer: _I stayed behind in Baz-el-Had to take one for the team; because you asked me to sacrifice myself and spare Brown. I am alive, I am here. Whatever I did it was my call, I was the man on the ground, I had control. Now the team takes one for me._


	10. Chapter 10

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 10

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

The only light was from a paraffin heater in the center of the room. As it flickered, shadows flew around while Jonas draw the circle over the dirt on the floor, meaning the non-written unit code ruled and said the ritual phrase for his teammates assembled around to hear.

"No dagger in my hand, but an olive branch. Mack?"

"Agreed. Bob?"

"Agreed. What about you, Carlito? Are you in the circle with the rest of us?"

"I am." Grey was certainly relieved at hearing that the assembly was not disciplinary or the formulae would have been said the other way around.

"We are on the wild now. On our own. Our law. It's the here and now that counts. It's us. And it stays with us. Full circle."

"OK, we are all in now. The code is in force. Hit it." Mack addressed Carlito.

"I never broke the code." Grey's back showed an asymmetric tension as he spoke.

"Never doubted you would honor the code whatever the circumstances. None of us." Jonas intervened to clear the air. But it didn't prevent Grey falling back into the world that was his in the dark, the one that started in Baz-el Had, when all he could see was pitch black, but for the three tiny holes of the hollow tubes his teammates had planted between the surface and the inner cocoon that they created below the bushy ground surface with a black body bag and some plexiglas lames in order to bury Grey close to the target, totally invisible to any scrutiny from or around the target compound, but just a mere hundreds of feet away.

"After leaving you behind in Baz-el-Had, we had been looking for Gojka for three solid days before giving up. Then we made our first attempt for a first comm with Dog Patch. Ryan was mad at us. Barking like crazy. He'd got DOD and Israelis yelling at him: none of them had seen our big ball of fire on sat pics from Baz. The other two teams were on the run. The eye in the sky from DC confirmed the mission was a flaw. Not even a shot to Kim-el-Hazad in any of the three locations." The big compound room was full of harshness and pain and bitterness all more apparent by the silence that met Jonas' account.

"It was a shock. And we hadn't found Gojka either. I scrambled the sat comm and then cut it." God, Jonas felt tired just then. Because Gojka had been one of the three snipers who'd put everything the three unit teams deployed needed to know. Also someone that had guaranteed many of Alpha's missions success with its accurate and to the point intell. But Gojka had suddenly stopped transmitting. Ryan had used Gojka's personal tracking chip to locate him by sat in the middle of the dessert, moving steadily to the core of hell itself, his death sentence signed, and there had been no way in earth to get in touch with him to re-route him to safety. No regulatory way, that is. But Jonas found their own: three of them would triangulate Gojka and get him back with them; Grey had agreed to take care of the rest and exfil without any cover when the time came.

"During the next comm, Ryan was no bullshit. He said that there had probably been a leak on information during the mission and asked for radio silence during the exfil. Cut us down. We couldn't even tell him then we left you behind. MIA. No questions asked. We had to haul ass fast and hard. Ryan had his hands busy and was just dealing with facts. He let us wander free. We did one last wild try at finding Gojka when we heard an European tourist had been spotted at a certain shepherd's village. When we arrived at Syria and could have safe communications with Dog Patch, you had showed already at Landstuhl. So we just had to back up your story."

"And what a story, by the way." Mack looked at Grey. There was no expression in Grey's face.

"Why didn't you set the charges out, Carlito?" Bob offered.

"I didn't because the target had left and was useless. Everything pointed to this being a transit camp rather than permanent barracks. Top dogs were not there. They left before dark on the first day. And I'd located Gojka... Fireworks could wait." He sounded as if his throat were closing.

_[I was no longer retelling the story on the reports, I was going to relive it again.]_

"He had been shot and dumped in a deep garbage pit outside the compound. When I could check on him he was bad. Real bad. I jabbed Gojka with an auto-jet of morphine to help him through. But it was too much for his heart, I guess."

"No. No, man. "

[_You can't tell me to my face that I am a liar, Bob? But you, Jonas and Mack know I am lying_. _Like all the white lies you tell your wives to ease the pain when we get back home_. _And you don't want to hear the truth about this one_.]

"We sterilized you before leaving you there."

[_Oh. That is an easy one. And I can answer it with the whole truth. Stark clean and no wrinkles._]

"I kept the auto-jet in me in case I got cramped and risked to compromise my position. 24 to 73 hours death still. I would have passed it on to you if our positions had been reversed."

"I have another question," Mack sparked up after being silent all through. "Why didn't you blow up the target before leaving, even if it was empty? Everybody happy..."

[_Children. There were children. Playing. Making lots of noise. Having fun. Laughing. For God's sake! I had been hearing them for hours. Before and after I heard how Gojka had been dragged, crying out in agony, to be dumped inside that garbage pit and shot. And I'd been racking my brains for hours. There is always many possible solutions to a problem. Always. Find one! Yet, death was final. I had never taken any pleasure in sacrificing a life, not even the first time. But certainly I was not to sever the ties of a young life when it still had choices to make, when innocence was still in force_.]

"Because if he did," Bob quickly stepped in, "we would never have had green light to go around that spot again. Now we can go with a clear B/L to finish the job and take Gojka back home with us."

"We take the initiative and we force them to react. All of them. Very clever." Jonas broke the circle drawn on the floor with a swift round move of his foot. No more talk was needed.

Jonas and Mack left for the far corner where Jonas hit the electric kettle button, while Bob signed Carlito to sit down on the cot.

"You don't look good. You hurting?"

"Where it shows and where it don't show."

[_I knew Ryan had the intel and I understood why it should have been me to press the hell express button. No kids. No wife. No religion. No moral barriers... I was perfect. As perfect as the drone that they couldn't sent. And Jonas just made it even more perfect taking any potenti_al_ly dissident voices away before daylight. I even doubted Ryan ever fed him any sat intel on Gojka_.]

"We have something else to take care of. You talked in the hospital, Charlie. "

"Ferris visited me for his report. I didn't tell him anything useful. No worries."

"After that interview... He was back."

[_And when things could go all wrong, they always could go for the worse. Ferris and his 'kind offer' to leave off midazolam from his med chart has come straight back to me with a vengeance_.]

"Bob, I don't remember him coming back."

"He did. You were sleeping. He recorded you. He admits in his report that he recorded you while sleeping."

"I don't even snore when I sleep. You know it."

"You don't while you are on a mission. You use your training well. But maybe you felt safe and too comfy in "our" restricted wing in "our" hospital."

"And why Ferris would do that?"

"Checking your cover story."

"To make sure that what, I held my cover?"

"Why didn't you call us first thing at your arrival? We would have sat by your bed and make sure you didn't show anything you didn't want to show. Ferris is brass. He wants to be in the mix, but not in the sand with us, high scale."

"I needed some time to deal with things my way. Needed to rest. I knew none of you would be happy with the outcome of Baz-el-Had as per the sat images Ryan had for sure. Just wanted to sleep and give my mind some rest to clear the mess I had been dealing with."

"Wanna hear the audio file?"

"You did?"

"I had to. Jonas and Mack would not."

"And... should I?"

"No."

"Instead of fearing the unknown it's better not to know."

"Not such a bad saying."

"What did I---"

"Nothing you should worry about. Ferris asked you some targeted questions that he never gets you to answer. It's just fair you know that there is this file." Sighing deeply, Grey looked wearily to Bob.

Bob knew that this loss of control would eat away at Charlie, but there was nothing he could do about it but tell him the truth. "Hey... Trust me. Clearly you were having a nightmare. You were yelling at kids, something about playing ball. Some heavy breathing here and there. You—You mention your mom. That kind of stuff. Just dwelling on the past I guess." Jonas and Mack reappeared with some bowls, the kettle and 4 packets of instant noodles.

Grey lowering his eyes to the floor got to Mack, who had remained silent most of the time. "Why do wolves howl? Why their howling is so searing and so sad?"

"Meaning?"

"If you howl it's because you are a wolf. So what? You know how it goes: today is fire, tomorrow is charcoal." Mack said to him, throwing a friendly punch to his arm.

"You sure you got rid of that file?" Jonas asked Bob.

"It's a digital file. I got rid of Sgt. Irvine's computer copy for Ryan. Didn't have access to Ferris' original. Can't tell you more. The audio file was on Ferris emailed report to support his recommendation not to send you in any mission soon. He doesn't back up Landstuhl's shrink theory that you could have been interrogated under torture. And you haven't been officially diagnosed by Ferris with PTSD, Charlie, but he states in this unofficial part to Ryan that he suspected you were using drugs to lessen its effects. You being a medic doesn't play on your side."

"I'm trapped. If I don't agree with PTSD Ferris will keep me on the fridge until I admit I've a problem. If I agree, I'm admitting there's a problem and I won't get out of it then." Grey kept his eyes down, concentrating on a minute crack in one of crate's wood.

"Does Ryan plan to press disciplinary actions?" Mack intervened again.

"We are wasting time here". Jonas nipped that turn of the conversation. "Ryan is special ops too. He knows better than pretend to smell like roses. He is not so naïve either. He won't buy PTSD from Ferris and he won't dig further on. Blue Ridge Op is a go in a few weeks. He can't afford to lose one of his best teams. And we are one for sure. Anything happens to any of us, it happens to all of us" Jonas gave them all a big grin, granting Bob and Mack's agreement. Jonas nudged Grey's side softly. "Then, one day a new permanent cadre will be installed over Ferris, and very soon all the dead wood will be cleared away."

_[Except in my head. One half was telling me everything was okay. Convincing myself that I'd said the right things in the right way at the right time. No way would Ferris chance his job being exposed even if he made ends meet in the future. So no court martial. That was for sure. The other was telling me that maybe he really didn't care what I was saying and he really thought he was trying to make me feel better by running through what had happened. Which even in a pretty-pretty world was unbelievable. And ours was not that world.]_

Grey looked down again, concentrating on the uneven pattern of the compound cement ground. The hot bowl of ramen between his hands.

"Are you listening? This is where we make our stand." Nodding slowly, Grey left the bowl on the floor and rubbed his sore eyes. But didn't raise his head.

[_Yeah, I am listening._ _Death freezes the dead, not the living. Gojka is not anymore. But Ferris, Ryan, myself are alive to kick each other butts. Ryan still could use a scapegoat for the team's failure. And I won't let any of you of your families to pay for me. Yeah, I am listening. And I am so damn tired. But I really don't want to close my eyes again.]_


	11. Chapter 11

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 11

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

_I'd never go like that. Not like that. Not this. I felt relieved that there was nothing that held me to life with that frantic a grip._

_I wondered if Gojka's Serbian accented English words pleading for his life, sobbing, repeating the names of his wife and children to people who didn't give a damn were born purely from fear and despair or if they didn't match his thoughts and he was just fighting till the last second to win some empathy with his captors, as we were taught we should._

_I started an inner chanting. I didn't want to hear any of what was to come. They were dragging him to the pit; the sound of it was unmistakably close. That would be the end of it. Yet all I could think was 'play the religion card, come on! Tell them you're a Muslim and they will be merciful to you. That Allah is great and merciful himself'._

_A thud—the body flopped into the squalid filth of their garbage pit. Two shots and a harsh bark of laughter followed, and I knew what had happened. It was the laughter that did it, that brought back the only piece of wisdom my momma graced me with all along her short and bitter life._

"_You stupid son of a bitch! You did what?" I cringed, and she slapped me, hard, in the face as it was closest. "You little shit!" I bit back my cry. A poke, then a shove. "Don't cry at me. Crying's worthless." She slapped me again for the good measure. I staggered back. "Those were no friends of yours. You're alone; do you hear me? Alone! People will always let you down." She pushed her face into mine. "Take this as your damned inheritance, Charles Lewis, because you'll get nothing more from me. This is your one and only Get Out of Hell card: trust no one, because no one cares about you. No one; do you hear me? __This is the history of the world." She relaxed again in her armchair, the only piece of furniture that held together in our so called home. "__Now bring me over that bottle and get out of my face."_

_And then: nothing. I was striving to hear their feet walking on gravel, back to the compound. Soon I could hear music playing, and everyday routine noises. A generator sparking up. Plates clattered, men laughed. It seemed wrong; it seemed that everything was happening in a parallel universe. I kept trying to concentrate in controlling my breath and the wild thumping of my heart, completely isolated from the outside world and alone. Totally panicked. Feeling trapped. Trying to hear the slightest of sounds that would tell me they had spotted my hiding hole and I would follow Gojka's fate. Buried alive already in what could be a tomb, madly trying to prevent myself from getting up and running away._

_To calm myself down, I started building and fine tuning a motorcycle on my mind. A hog. The perfect one. The one that would be mine one day to go ride along the world. I even designed the stickers on my helmet. A backpack with the basics, my bike and riding against the wind it will be. That was my private escape dream. Not looking for a paradise, just ride to feel free. A dream that I had shared with Hector many times. Hector, who being Hector, in one of his many darker days had said to me, 'A man can't run away from what is inside him' to which I quickly fired back with a chuckle and a classic of mine that I knew would piss him off enough to take him out of his somber mood to scold me for being such a stupid fool: 'Rise and rise again, my friend. Rise and rise again.'_

_It never stopped to amaze me what you can sense when you are still and let your mind clear itself and become a receptor of sensory input, without the clutter of human commotion. Soon that advantage had turned against me full force. As soon as silence had finally settled in the compound and I had abandoned my fox hole to exfil, a soft moaning first and a slowly repeating litany after that sent me the chills. 'Sarah... _Sarah... Sarah...Sarah... Sarah...' _It made me sneak into the pit, panic flooding through, adrenalin spiking. It was not possible, but it was._

"Gojka... Ivan... Shhh... It's Carlito... Shut up."

"Carlito... "

"Me, bro. Shhh..."

_I grasped Gojka under the arms and pulled him into a half seated position,__ knees bent on both sides of him, cradling him against my chest, trying to quiet down his shivering, to pass to him in his semi-conscious state a sense of reassurance._

"You can lean on me now. I've got you, bro. I've got you."

"Carlito... Tell Dog Patch... Call off the teams... Call... them... off..."

_It didn't take me much even in the dark to realize that he had taken one in the gut and one in the chest_. _How he had managed to make it all through the last hours alive was a miracle. I put my mouth to his ear._

"They know. Shhh..."

_What could I tell him? That it was too late already? That B and C teams had already been in deep shit if Ks were expecting them 3 hours ago? That Alpha was in the middle of nowhere looking for him and putting their lives at risk for nothing?_

"I took as much as I could... all I could..."

"Ok-Ok-Ok... They're safe. Relax. You did good."

_Was I to tell him that there was no hope for him, no chance at all? That it was what it was? The end of the road? So I quietly let myself drift away, detached from him, from there, to do what had to be done, and poured in his ear all he wanted to hear._

"Shhh... Everybody's gonna make it. You too."

"Sarah... My kids, Carlito..."

_And I put my hand firmly against Ivan's mouth. Sealing it._

"Sorry but you need to keep quiet... Shhh... Called Sarah before leaving."

_I slide my right hand upwards, sealing his nose, too. My left hand across his chest on his right shoulder as if I were forcing a choke hold, wishing I could just press on his carotid and make it easier for him... and for me._

"Sarah... Mickey and Cynthia are well and happy..."

_Ivan makes a feeble attempt to suck some air, any, through my tightly closed fingers and he feebly struggles to untangle himself from my forceful embrace_.

"I heard them playing in the backyard while Sarah told me to keep you... safe..."

_He is fighting for air now, but I know I won't back off, I won't. I don't have to._

"Don't freak out, Ivan. Just putting you to sleep. You know how it works. Let go. (...) It's going to hurt more while I fix you up—you know that, don't you? I can't risk you crying out in pain... Let go, Ivan."

_I strengthen my left hand over his shoulder, cuddling him against my chest. Hoping he can feel at least some warmth and comfort_.

"Really, it's not that bad… It looks a lot messier than it is. I'll make sure it doesn't get worse, then get you to a doctor. It'll be fine."

_I know I shouldn't do what I am about to do_.

"She loves you... Sarah loves you for real, man... She said how much she missed you and was crying on the phone... I told her how much you loved her... That we were all tired of you telling us every time..."

_I shouldn't be lying to him. I think I am lying to myself_. _There are still the longest seconds to come and I won't relax my grip_. _Gojka, like the rest of us, could resist many minutes without air_.

"Don't freak out... It's all right, buddy. Need to fix your fingers. Put your shoulder back. Stitch up that big hole in your middle. It'll hurt like a mother. Let yourself go now. Lean on me. Lean on me."

_For a moment, I could feel Ivan relaxing in my embrace. Whether he believes me or just understands there is no other way out, I would never know. Then his body takes the con again and with it his renewed efforts to breathe and keep living. You cannot trick instinct._

"I've got you. Don't fight it. Just putting you to sleep. You'll sleep now. Don't freak out. Remember to dream. Just dream."

_Ks are leaving. All the signs are here. I heard hooting in the distance and the sound of vehicles. The big corrugated iron gates were being kicked open. The Mercedes had left already. I could tell by the sound of its engine it was the Mercedes. The Mercedes would always carry Top Dogs in that side of the world. The only cars that could be blinded without a hell of a lot of effort. There was no point in blowing an empty shell with a lot of women and kids. And I owed Ivan a decent place to rest at least. A place that preserved some human decency for he __had been a warrior ready to defend and protect women and children - like those._

"Go in peace, brother... You are safe now_. _Go in peace..._"_

_I had to take him out of that pit quickly, before death crept all through his body, claiming what was left of his soul. I exchanged the ragged djellaba they had left over him for my recce suit, with the ring in the back that would allow me to pull Gojka out of the pit and grant him some clean ground. He deserved at least that last honor. I dug with my fingers to enlarge my hiding hole and buried him there, in the body bag, with my MP5 and all the rest that I had. Then I hauled ass out of there just before dawn, Gojka's djellaba strongly smelling of sweat and urine, dread and blood and death against the offensive fresh sweet morning breeze that hit my face with a vengeance._


	12. Chapter 12

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 12

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

_Geezuz, Charles. Get over it already! Grief takes different people in different ways. I understand. __I think I do. But how am I supposed to act in front this unabashed display of pain? Sarah's choking with tears with her arms over my shoulders and she shouldn't be embarrassing herself like this—or me. There's already enough suffering around here. Everybody is looking at us, hell! All __I wanted was to give her my condolences and get a quick FIFO from this wake for Ivan Gojka. _

"Sarah..."

"Charlie... Oh, Charlie..." Sarah breaks into a new burst of crying. _Tears on my uniform, little drips of darkness, won't lighten up until they dry_. "Charlie, thank you-thank you-thank you!"

"Sarah..."

_I am closing the eyes and focus on combat breathing. I wish I could be running away__, escaping from that house and from this room in particular, from __everything, if only long enough for this never ending funeral to end..__. _

"Thank you, Charlie. Thank you. You brought him home." _At least she has moved her hands to rest over my arms now. _"This family owes you so much. Now I can mourn him. I wouldn't... I couldn't-" Tears_ keep rolling down her cheeks in big drops, fresh ones appearing the moment she wipes the old ones away._

"It has been an honor and a privilege to serve with your husband." _Standard words, and practiced. Don't have to think about what they mean._

"I was always all right if I wasn't aware of what was going on when he left for a mission. I knew very little of what Ivan did, and had never asked questions" _Because, of course, you didn't want the answers_. "'Oh, you're off. When are you coming back?' It was the most I could ever ask him, Charlie. But this time it was different. I knew he shouldn't be going, that I should forbid him to go. I knew. I _knew_."

"I know you miss him." _I try to smile in sympathy, and for a second there is a smile in her eyes too but now it's gone._ "Everything hurts. But you'll know how to handle it in your own time and your own way. You'll see."

"You must understand, if it was just me, I'd go off somewhere and curl up in a ball until I stopped wanting to be dead, but there are the kids…" _Her eyes dart to Mickey and Cynthia sitting quietly in a corner, probably longing as much as myself all this to end and get back to their lives._ _Do they really understand what's happening? Did they know their father well enough to care?_ _Probably not._ "What am I going to do now? You men are so selfish, you leave us in the back front, with no training to face any of this. What can I do now, Charlie?" _Sarah Gojka is sniffling again_. "You were his friend, Charlie. The only one to drop by every day and be by his bed to make sure he did his rehab when things went so rough for us. You are a friend of this family. Tell me what can I do now?"

"Be yourself. Follow your heart but only when you've put your brains into gear again." _And it's time for me to cut this off. I reach out and place my hands over hers and squeeze them gently to separate them from my arms._ "Ivan was no fool. He was in the Army. You must respect his choice. Remember, he died doing what he wanted to do, knowing what he was dying for. It will help make everything all right."

"Please tell me how he died. They won't. I need to know." _So this was it. Time for the emotional extortion. Time to fish for the gory details. You knew there was a reason that Sarah grabbed you when you came in. _"You were the one to find him; I know that much. I want to know all."_ This was only just the beginning and I couldn't put up with it any longer_.

"I know you think it will help, but it won't." _She opens her mouth to speak and I raise my hand to stop her_. "Same as some things are worth dying for, some secrets are worth keeping."

"So you're telling me I should act like a good soldier and embrace pain and suffering for nothing?" _Not for nothing. How can you say that! You! An Army spouse. Ivan didn't die for nothing. He didn't die in vain._ "You know, he thought I'd put up a fight when he told me he wanted another tour. I thought I was being noble by not giving him a hard time about it. Save him a great deal of pain. Having to choose between his work and his family. But he has left me all alone, with two kids. Nothing in the bank. It's not fair. It's not fair, Charlie!" _Not fair. Right. Well, whoever sold you that life was supposed to be fair just duped you._

"Noble. Is this what are you being now?" _My question takes her by surprise and it sets off her tears again_. _There were some things I needed to say, and she needed to hear._ "Is this being noble to his memory, today of all days? Belittling his sacrifice with this useless pity party? Ivan was fighting for something he believed in. The people he cared for lived in this country that he had played his part to protect. You, the kids, were his main concern and he did his best to accommodate his duty to his family and country with the rest. If I were you, I would feel honored to have shared a life with someone with better values in his life than money_._"

"Grey!" _Ryan. From somewhere too close behind m_e.

"We are having a private conversation. _Sir." Now Ryan did it. Again. Him of all men, trying to teach me a lesson. __Anger bobs up, like a cork. I fight to hold it down, almost succeeding, stretching my hands at my side until it hurts to distract my attention. But I know I am snapping next second, I know-I know-I know, and I know I can't help it. And none of my bros is here to stop me. And I feel a hand on my forearm and I have to stop myself from taking a step back. Physical contact is the last thing I can stand just now._

"Sarah, Colonel... I'm sure that the two of you would appreciate some time to talk and I'd much appreciate the sergeant seeing me home. It's getting late, and I don't relish the thought of leaving without an escort," _Molly. Gently pushing me out of the Gojka's kitchen._ _Pushing me out of harm's way_.

* * *

When they were in out in the porch and safely out of the Colonel's hearing, Molly turned to him. "So?"

Grey glanced at her questioningly, eyes wary. "You were assigned bodyguard duty tonight? Top put you up to this?"

Molly persisted. She lifted her chin unrepentantly. "All the uniforms are out there, protecting the peace. That leaves the rest of us to fill in the gaps."

Grey opened the little gate to the main street before replying, "Good, then get out there and do your job." He wouldn't meet her eyes. "I'm sure there's someone out there who needs you."

"Charlie... You are the oddest combination of a man." Molly took Grey's arm once more, not fooled one bit. "You look at the world with fewer illusions than anyone I have ever known, yet you are as sentimental as someone who thinks that the world is pretty-pretty."

"Really? You just saw there with Sarah how sentimental I am." Grey managed a dry look. His mouth twisted bitterly to one side in a grin deliberately difficult to interpret.

"If you weren't, you'd have let her rant on and then excused yourself and left. Look, I don't know if it helps at all," Molly continued, "but I wonder if, ultimately, the sense of any life lay with the survivors, in their memories. In their tears… The spouses left behind, whether men or women, we have no other way to—"

"... take the beating." Grey completed her sentence. "There is no getting away from it."

"That's what my dad would say to my sister and me when we didn't have good grades at school. If there is nothing else you could offer me, you could at least bare your backs so that I can have something to strike against."

Grey's back stiffened, even so slightly.

"Sarah needed to get it out one way or the other. You were the perfect conduit for her to vent her grief for the loss of Ivan. She feels helpless and lost at the same time."

"Guess so."

"And I cannot feel what you men feel when deployed but I've thought many times how hard must it be for you to be there and to do what has to be done." Molly paused, gathering her thoughts. Then she fixed him with a stern eye. "Now try and put yourself in Sarah's shoes. She was living a month ago with a wonderful man, one who provided for her and their children in many ways, and I am not talking about money here. Then, suddenly, she is told by a couple of military manual phrases that she is left out in the cold. And you are not in Hollywood... There is no nice music to go with your tears. Don't blame her too for losing control and saying a ton of silly things today."

"Ryan thought I was losing control."

"Me too. Were you?"

"Well, boot my ass all the way back to your home, sistah, 'cause I surely deserve it"

Molly graced him with a cocky grin, her white teeth gleaming under the moon light.


	13. Chapter 13

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 13

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

"You stupid son of a bitch..."

"You are not allowed to call me that. Just family." Grey's carbon-like eyes pierced those of B-Team's leader.

"I've heard your team call you that hundreds of times."

"Like I said."

"But why not do it? For Sarah it's important that you're one of the pall bearers at the funeral. It's an honor. Don't ask me how she knew, she knows you were the one to actually find Gojka's body."

"Anyone on B could have. It was just a lucky shot. And she shouldn't know those things."

"Wives have their own intel and they are good at it."

"Dauber, I said no. You were leading the team for the second incursion in Baz, you should do it; maybe one of Gojka's own teammates. I went to lend you a hand 'cause I had been there doing the previous recce. Just that."

"She won't understand, you know? Give it another thought."

"Drop it, man. Look, give the guys a round on me. I'm outta here."

* * *

"Yo, Bob. Need to give you a head's up: Charlie decided to celebrate our safe return in a big way today. He's been pouring it down, Bob, sitting in a corner of Freddie's backyard, under the rain. Freddy called me. Said Charlie had been acting too hyped up and Ryan just arrived to have a few himself. You better round Charlie up now, Bob. Keep him away from Ryan."

"Got it. Coming. Thanks, buddy"

* * *

The alley was dark; dark as pitch, dark as night, and as dark as Grey's thoughts. There was nothing that he could see, not without even so much as a stray moonbeam, but he could feel that his pants were wet and clinging to him like a second skin. He'd lost his shoes; where, he had no idea. At the moment it didn't matter. Remembering how he'd arrived in this condition seemed a much better pursuit…

"Carlito! For God's sake! Carlito...!"

The man who belonged to that voice sounded concerned. He struggled, but felt himself slipping into oblivion... deeper and deeper. The world seemed far away. It was a strange sensation. He floated, his thoughts fluffy as a homemade mousse; mouth, eyes and nose pricking just enough to remind him he was alive. It was almost soothing, relaxing- a sweet caress to his overloaded senses. No information to process, no rush, no sense of duty; just peace and quiet, a balm to his troubled soul.

His was indeed a troubled soul. In the protecting void that surrounded him it didn't seem right to call for actual thinking. Floating; floating was all right. Those rosy lights, suave, dancing in front of his eyes. Were those coming from a Windows 7 start up screen? The thought seemed to fit: bright soft dots connecting. Soon they'd be meeting each other, gravity forcing them to create something bigger, important, meaningful, like his team did... and he was a part of it.

The team. What happened to the team? Top? Mack? Bob? Oh, Geezuz... Sweet Geezuz... No..

* * *

As Bob's eyes adjusted to the dull light from the streetlamps, he could make out his shape. Grey was eagle-sprawled over the hood of his own Wrangler, star shaped, rain pouring over him, with a lost stare on the star filled sky above.

"Carlito. You crazy little- What the fuck!"

Bob stopped on his tracks, taking in the scene.

Carlito's skin glowed in the cold beam of Freddy's neon house lights, but his brow was furrowed. For a moment, he almost seemed to be in pain under the rain rivulets on his face. Or were those tear drops? Bob reached out to touch his team mate. He slipped his fingers into Carlito's belt, going for a firm grasp on the belt and starting to pull.

"Carlito! Carlito!"

"You okay?" Grey croaked, his eyes gaining focus.

Bob laughed, the sound sudden and uncontrolled. He was an inch away from falling apart himself; their last mission minus Grey had been a rough one, and something on his face must have given it away for Charlie to pick up on it.

"Am _I_ okay?" Bob rasped. He clenched his teeth, because the next laugh building inside his chest threatened to turn into something nasty. "Jesus, Charlie..." Bob breathed in and scrubbed at his eyes. "No, I'm not OK. I'm a wreck and I'm not in my nice warm bed right now 'cause someone called to say you were on your ass in the rain, juiced to the gills. Again."

"What...?" Grey mumbled, raising a sluggish hand and pressing it over his eyes. "I'm just peachy."

Bob wasn't able to produce a chuckle this time. Charlie's insecure tone was getting to him. There was something truly wrong.

"Peach jam, more likely."

The older soldier looked up at his buddy, his eyes wounded and his expression haunted. Watching Charlie's face pale as he clumsily tried to push himself up was too much for Bob, who reached out to help him. "Charlie, we gotta talk."

"No, man. Let me be. I am good."

"We gotta talk." Bob didn't stop.

"Not now." Grey retorted in a low voice.

Despite Bob's good intentions, he realized that his words had sounded like a warning. The truth was that everything was too raw —_he_ was too raw. He had been dying to take a swing at something for hours himself, and given how weird things were with Charlie recently, it would be incredibly easy to snap. But that was something Bob or anyone in The Unit could really _really_ never afford to do.

"I need to piss." He rationalized his refusal to Bob, averting his eyes.

Bob didn't budge right away, but Grey didn't meet his eyes either. The silent battle of wills ended a second later, when Bob let out a quiet sigh but didn't step back.

"Charlie, talk to me." Bob pushed. "What's in your bag of tricks tonight?"

"One too many, apparently. That's what you said. You know... Felt like having a little fun and no brains for a change." Grey grimaced and rubbed at the bridge of his nose.

"How was it back home with B Team?" Safer ground, talking about that.

"Two-Left-Feet was too slow and was sprayed all over by the debris after putting the charges. I passed the time all the way back home cleaning him up. Sticking and peeling yards of duct tape all over him."

"Guess he is smooth as the rump of a baby now. I never saw anyone as hairy as him."

"Yep. Depilation service was free of charge. That was my little revenge. That and that he cried so much all through it that no one could sleep for more than three minutes in a row. Just like me."

Time to discuss something with a little more meat to it. Bob changed the subject. "And what were you just doing in here, under the rain?"

"Doing my weekly wash... Yeah... "

"Letting the rain wash your what exactly?"

"Dauber asked me to be a pall bearer tomorrow. Said Sarah wanted it that way." Grey's slurred words were almost a murmur.

"A duty of honor born from Sarah's heart. So what?" This was not just avoiding Ryan and Grey colliding. This was more.

"I can't do it, Bob." Grey wouldn't meet Bob's eyes. "I…I can't. Not after what I did."

"You speak as if you had a choice in the matter." How to get far deep under Grey's skin and talk him out of his present mindset should be his primary focus, Bob knew. None of the team could afford getting too much attention on them or their last missions. There were still too many loose ends. Grey was making too many waves yet for their own good.

"I did. I choose not to do it."

"Set your mind to the task. What you did was an act of mercy for a brother. Why are you so troubled about it? All you have to do is remember you were strong enough to be there for him when he needed you the most."

"All I have to do is close my eyes and-"

"Every night breaks and we must all awake. Come on. Pull yourself together." If Grey was still so troubled about it all, that would be something to face in a later future, certainly not then.

"Tomorrow he'll be remembered as a husband, a father and a good soldier... And I'll know he perished by my hand." Grey persisted.

"Better a friend's hand than tortured by the enemy." Bob dived straight in into the matter. "You must complete the journey you began at Baz-el-Had. Only then will you be able to find your way back."

"How do it?"

"Release your burden. Accept Gojka's family's gratitude and move on. We got back in time from Blue Ridge's mission. We all will be there tomorrow as a team. You won't be alone. Let's go home now."

"No."

"No? It's either your home or mine, Charlie. You'll get a few hours sleep, let me have mine and we'll have breakfast with the family, dress up and go to the funeral together. We'll wrap up this situation once and for all."

Grey's brain was moving slowly, Bob could see that easily. Which way would the man turn? Bob pushed; he went for the upper hand. "Kim told me Serena has been asking about you the whole week. You made quite an impression on her with your ability to serve invisible tea and have a conversation with her endless collection of stuffed animals. I'd pay to see that myself, dude." Grey's hardened looks softened even so slightly at the mention of Bob's little daughter. "You have an strange effect on people Charlie. The way you look at things. You see what really matters and you don't care about how it would make you look at the eyes of other people. Until now? Now you care more about your image than facts?"

"No." Now Bob got him where he wanted, he could tell. He had cornered him and drunk as a skunk as he probably was, Bob knew the message got loud and clear to Grey's brain and would stay there. Bob was the link with the reality Grey wanted to embrace and couldn't and he was ready to give it the final smash.

Bob will put the last nail onto Carlito's lid now. "What are you looking for? Redemption? You are the only one qualified to judge yourself, since you say you don't believe in God. So judge yourself by the intention of your actions, Charlie. There is only one question you have to answer to yourself. Whether you did what you did for good or for evil. The rest is irrelevant."

Grey blinked. Damn, but the water in the man's eyes looked more like tears than raindrops. It was time to go. Grey let Bob manhandle him into the car and sat there, shivering. Not from the cold. Shivering from—what? Not the time to deal. There would only just be enough time to get through the damn funeral without making a scene that could bring down the entire Unit. The lid to the inferno of Grey's emotions was nailed shut, but just barely.

Bob hoped the lid would stay on forever. Failing that, it needed to be kept shut until they could leave for a new deployment and deal with it at the team's own time and space.


	14. Chapter 14

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 14

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

He feigned sleep, trying to keep his body still and his breathing deep and even, wondering what would she do. Next thing was that little sweet kiss in his cheek and the small finger of Serena poking gently at his face.

"Good morning, Uncle Charlie." It was the sweetest form of love he ever received. He was moved so deeply as he couldn't remember having felt in all his life.

"Serena... Good morning, sweet thing." Grey could hardly find the words,. What did he know from kids?

"Are you asleep?"

"Not anymore."

Serena climbed to the couch as if it was the most natural thing in the world; then she sat over his stomach and started bouncing over it.

"Ow, ow, ow... I feel a little fly bothering me. Get off, little fly! Get off!" He accompanied that with tickling Serena's belly. Her jiggles and shrieks of laughter should have pierced his aching head but truth be told he felt happier than he had for many months.

"Mommy is making pancakes." She said crawling back down.

"Yummy! Love them."

"Me too."

As he lazily remained in the couch, his thoughts drifted to last night. Then Serena came back.

"Daddy says you can't play with me because you are going to a funeral. What is a funeral?"

"Something we never want to go, but we go because it's very important to other people." This one was different, though. Very different. "Wow! I can smell those pancakes from here... Yum! Yum! Yum! Go! Hurry up! Or I'm going to get there first and eat them all…"

"No! Mommy! Mommy!"

Grey glanced at the hallway and found his brother in arms watching him gravely. "Are you okay?" Bob's voice reached Grey from the kitchen, leaning against the doorframe, his expression tight. Grey swallowed as his head throbbed mercilessly.

"I'm fine." He gritted.

Bob pursed his lips and arched an eyebrow in clear disbelief.

"Of course you are." Bob sighed approaching and handling him a couple of Tylenols. "Did you get any sleep?" was his next question.

"Not much. You?"

"Managed a few hours. There will be plenty of time for us to rest when the funeral is over. You good to go?"

"I'm good. Don't worry." Bob's tense expression softened a few notches, relief washing over him. "I am. I am fine."

"Let's do this then, buddy. Going to go out for an hour or so, then we dress and we leave together. We can meet Top and Mack there."

"Yep."

Charlie could feel it the moment he crossed the door into the Brown's kitchen and a wave of unease hit him. The thank you smile on Grey's face congealed by the tense stare of Kim.

"This might hurt, Charlie. But someone has to say it. Let's set things straight before Serena comes back."

"Say what you have to say, Kim." He maintained the smile on his face but his eyes were not that friendly anymore.

"So let's draw a nice clean line. No bad feelings, no apologies, no troubles. I try to speak my mind."

"As I just said."

"I certainly didn't like it when Bob brought you home last night. It terrorized me that Serena might come close to you while you were sleeping and you could hurt her unawares of where you were or who was approaching you. I'd passed the night in her bed, holding her against me." There was a beat of silence that was too long.

"Wise thought."

"Next time, please say no to Bob." There was a tremor in her voice, and she didn't like it.

"I'll do it. Does that set things straight?" Grey fixed Kim with a pointed look

"No hard feelings?" she felt her cheeks heat.

"No hard feelings."

"Have some pancakes. Want some jam, butter, maple syrup?"

Grey blinked himself back into an apparently normal family breakfast and stared dully at the mounting pile of pancakes laid in front of him, as he massaged the bridge of his nose.

"No. Thanks. I'm really not hungry," he mumbled.

Kim took a breath, plunged in: "You said no hard feelings just a moment ago..."

"We are ok, Kim. No worries. I understand what you said. I think you've been very honest and I respect that. Just my stomach is not up to much eating right now. May I borrow some of your coffee instead and a couple of those sugar cookies?"

"Of course."

The moment Grey stretched out his right hand. A small one gripped his.

"Look, Uncle Charlie. This is Mary Mae. I dressed her. See? Isn't she pretty?"

"A beauty queen. She's got some beautiful green eyes too. Like your Mom's." _Who sees me like some kind of monster. So that was it. No _sanctuary anymore for him here, nowhere to be able to go off alert, to let the body and mind relax in this one safe haven ever again.

Serena pulled down on his shirt and was on her toes to make him bend over enough to be able whisper in his ear, "When Mommy is angry with me, I just go and hug her. She likes that."

Grey couldn't help himself but melt all his present sourness in a warm smile for her and gave her the OK sign with his thumb up. "I'll remember that, sweetcheeks." He changed the subject to something a little safer. "Wanna go and play ball together in the backyard until daddy comes back? I'll show you a new trick."

"Yeah! Can we, mom?"

"Sure. Go."

"Let's go then."

* * *

"Be careful. He might hear you," the voice of Molly cautioned Kim over the phone.

"He's in the backyard with Serena. I see them both from here. He is giving Serena tips on how to play soccer. Serena, the most girlish girl you can imagine." Kim, paused for a second. "Oh, Molly... You know what it was to hear him talk like a lunatic in his sleep. And the next minute he would start begging to his mother like a little child. I can't look at his face that easily again." Kim had burned to tell her friend about Grey and what she heard in the early morning.

"So, he is human after all."

"He didn't sound like one. He was wild. The things he was saying. They were terrible. And Bob sleeping like a log."

"You, Tiffy, Keisha, I; only we know what happens behind the door of our bedrooms at night, how much we have to endure to maintain their sanity. Or are you telling me that Bob has never had a nightmare or a flashback? Like so many other Unit wives, though none of us talk about it."

"But Charlie is alone... That's what scares me. I know Bob would never hurt Serena or me. But Charlie is not living the white picket fence lifestyle. There is no one to balance him, to bring him back to the good side. Sometimes he acts a little bit too crazy for my likes. And you should have heard him when I told him that, with his voice low and raspy, as if every word had the veil of a threat behind it"

"If you accept what our husbands do, you do because you know that acts of hatred also bring acts of love, We are at the frontier of their job, Kim. They leave home, all bright and shiny and mission-ready, secure in the knowledge that life—their _real_ life—is waiting back here with us. They come home because of _us_, child. We are their rock." Molly paused, gathering her thoughts. "Charlie has no one to help him with that. Charlie is an island in the middle of nowhere, and more so since Hector left us."

"Come on, Molly. Charlie, "the playa", always able to talk any woman around to his bed? His only known hobby, all the values he has in him. He has nothing in common with the rest of our men. When have you heard him sharing with us anything else than some gross story about his exploits? Not a single word about his family. He doesn't even ever mention Hector. Like he has forgotten him completely, like he had never been around. And he was his best friend."

"You judge him harshly, don't you? You always tell me: Keep personal issues away of judgment. And here you are, not following your own advice," Molly retorted sternly. "A death can hit a squadron hard, especially a relatively small unit like ours. With Ivan we have had three in less than a year. All the guys are feeling it, Kim. Charlie too. And any and all of them have their particular way to deal with it. Don't you think there are enough enemies around without us creating our own?"

Kim turned her attention suddenly towards the backyard when she heard a high pitched squeal from Serena that quickly turned into a fit of giggles. "I hurt him, I know. But I was right doing what I did. I am protecting my child. Serena should always come first."

"So Charlie got scars, and only at his funeral we would know how many purple hearts or silver medals he has hidden in a box of cigars that says he's a hero. And yes, he has those terrible nightmares that says he's only human. Don't you think that Charlie too, on occasions like this, could be thinking about who will weep for him?" Molly let out a little stiffly. "I have to prepare Jonas's full dress uniform yet. See you at the funeral."


	15. Chapter 15

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 15

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

_Thank you, Elouise, for letting me know you're enjoying the story so far and for taking the time to comment on the different chapters. Chapter 15 is dedicated to you in appreciation._

* * *

Grey was professional, ruthless, focused and capable of killing. His speed and versatility to adapt to new situations, spoke volumes of the measure of his intelligence. He was also the perfect companion for everybody, without distinction of sex, religion or color to share some beers and a few easy laughs, or so people on the Unit said.

The only bit of his past that had seeped into the awareness of his present brothers in arms was that he had been a combat airborne ranger medic and had also served in an engineering regiment specialized in demolitions before that. They knew because all of the Unit teams had used his expertise one time or another in their missions. Nobody seemed to care that Grey's bedside manners were rough or that pain was a sure bet under his ministrations. He was capable of solving problems in an efficient, quick and discreet way, avoiding unwanted attention from anyone and everyone, even the brass when necessary.

Outside of the Unit, Grey didn't exist. His previous life had been erased and he had been handed a clean bill like all the rest one given day. The men in the Unit didn't care about each other's past lives. They cared about their present fit for the job and to guard each other's backs. That was the reason Molly, for one, was an invaluable piece for Colonel Ryan. She was who knew the real answers, the keeper of the secret life of those secretive men, of what made each one of them tick, and also who among them where totally fearless and had their ethics filed under "Things-to worry-about-when-I-am-dead".

The little she had heard about Grey's tell-tales here and there among the men would qualify him to be one of that last dangerous handful. The stories shared between the women of the Unit spoke instead of a Charlie Grey perennially happy and who never put difficult questions to life, just lived it to its fullest. He was the perfect guest for any BBQ, not so much for a wedding or any other familiar event of major significance, his social skills not being all that great.

So Molly felt entitled to a little bit of curiosity, free to look a bit under the carpet after 6 years of knowing -or not knowing- Mr. Mystery Man himself. And the time was just right.

All of Alpha Team had left in a rush in the middle of the night for a long mission. She had heard Jonas on that hated phone receiving instructions and confirming. Molly had barely the time to make him a hot brew and receive a quick kiss on the forehead and lips from her husband before watching him disappear. Again. Only God knew for how long this time.

Next morning she realized there was a nice bouquet of her own roses on her kitchen's window sill, all the thorns carefully wrapped on what looked like a torn rag of an old black T-shirt and a key attached to the knot binding it all together along with a scribbled piece of paper with _Tks. ChG_. Molly could easily imagine Charles Grey cutting his own T-shirt and writing in a flash that coded message to ask her to have a look at his pad. Molly was moved as much as for the added delicate little touch that he had added to his petition, as for Grey's request per se, addressing her in lieu of leaving the key to Sgt. Irvine or whoever was on duty that night at Fort Griffith's Command Center, as the rest of the bachelors in the Unit did.

Later on that day, as she was mounting the stairs to the 202, Charlie's place, Molly recalled a clear picture of that apartment during her last visit a year ago, accompanying Hector's parents to pick up Hector's belongings.

Scattered around the tea table there were plenty of travel magazines and a play-station with several games on top. The fridge's door was colored with postcards and photographs of beautiful places from all around the world. Plenty of music CDs, a dartboard, different caps and jackets hanging close by the entrance door along with a big Mexican hat. And, although the kitchen's order was immaculate, all the rest around that central piece talked of some young men enjoying themselves in their free time. Molly was ashamed of herself as she couldn't help tears welling in her eyes in stark contrast with the proud dignity of Mr. and Mrs. Williams, the presence of Hector so alive all around her and knowing he was not coming back.

The minute Hector's parents left taking with them the last of the cardboard boxes, just a few hours after, the apartment looked as it had been sanitized and was ready for renting. Not even any of the typical holiday's pictures that she remembered seeing in the fridge's door had been spared. Only a big peace sign in wood was left and she wondered whether Grey didn't have anything that had been his or if Grey had been happy to let fade all his personal belongings mixed into his best friend's as a silent offering and tribute to Hector, like ancient warriors honored in their burials.

Molly thought again about Hector's parents ripping away Hector's presence from the house with a surgical and efficient cruelty. How little Grey must have found of his previous life when he returned to that now barren flat that used to be his home.

A year had passed and, entering the apartment once more, an overwhelming sadness seeped into her soul. The big peace sign carved in wood was still there where she remembered but for the rest the apartment was functional, and only functional; the only touch of warmth was a new big picture of a beach in the lonely free wall. All the rest was nothing but a cavernous blank.

Grey's bedroom was a mess. The covers were thrown about the bed, dripping onto the floor. A mixture of clothes were scattered on the floor as well, and they smelled. Molly could smell sweat and stale humanity; from the looks of things, Molly was pretty sure this was not its usual state. There was pain here.

She walked in, moving to open the window and began gathering together the scattered clothes. She chucked them on top of the bed sheets, tugging the edges out from underneath the mattress. Her hands stilled when she saw the many blood stains on the sheets. Whether they were from a recent injury or just a sign of Grey's lack of experience to wash some old ones away, she couldn't tell.

The rest of the house was military tidy. Nonetheless, Molly did a perfunctory look inside the bathroom, between the kitchen and the bedroom. There was no bath, just a shower, sink and toilet. Not even a meds cabinet. In the kitchen, a solitary tea mug in the sink and a few veggies and some cheese inside the fridge were the only signs that someone lived there.

About to leave, she left the dirty laundry bag and strode over the sink, rinsing the mug out. She wiped down the top, the faucets, the kettle, anything at hand, before recognizing she didn't want to leave for home, not yet. So she looked for the linen in Grey's closet and remade the bed, smoothed the soft black blanket out thoroughly, making sure there were no lumps in it. Along with the cool breeze from the window it made the room smell fresh, and clean, and new. She fluffed both pillows.

Only then did she realize that there was a small bookshelf in one corner of the room: physics and chemistry books, mostly. The Webster. The Scientific American Cyclopedia of Formulas. Materials from different courses. A Korean-English dictionary; German, French, and Spanish versions also. And... poetry books. There were no novels or other kind of literary works. Just poetry. Was it just a necessary tool to charm the legendary number of women that he allegedly had dated in his short life?

She took one at random, it was the eight pages hardcover of Max Ehrmann's _Desiderata_. Molly knew the poem by heart:

_Go placidly amid the noise and haste,__  
__and remember what peace there may be in silence.__  
__As far as possible without surrender__  
__be on good terms with all persons.__  
__Speak your truth quietly and clearly;__  
__and listen to others,__  
__even the dull and the ignorant;__  
__they too have their story._

_Avoid loud and aggressive persons,__  
__they are vexations to the spirit.__  
__If you compare yourself with others,__  
__you may become vain and bitter;__  
__for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.__  
__Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans._

_Keep interested in your own career, however humble;__  
__it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.__  
__Exercise caution in your business affairs;__  
__for the world is full of trickery.__  
__But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;__  
__many persons strive for high ideals;__  
__and everywhere life is full of heroism._

_Be yourself.__  
__Especially, do not feign affection.__  
__Neither be cynical about love;__  
__for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment__  
__it is as perennial as the grass._

_Take kindly the counsel of the years,__  
__gracefully surrendering the things of youth.__  
__Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.__  
__But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.__  
__Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.__  
__Beyond a wholesome discipline,__  
__be gentle with yourself._

_You are a child of the universe,__  
__no less than the trees and the stars;__  
__you have a right to be here.__  
__And whether or not it is clear to you,__  
__no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should._

_Therefore be at peace with God,__  
__whatever you conceive Him to be,__  
__and whatever your labors and aspirations,__  
__in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul._

_With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,__  
__it is still a beautiful world.__  
__Be cheerful.__  
__Strive to be happy._

It was a dedicated copy. From Annie.

Saying goodbye.


	16. Chapter 16

**Title:** Dark Alley—Chapter 16

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

Tears were not what Charlie wanted to see on Kim's face right then.

"Hold him still. Hold him still."

But tears kept rolling down Kim's cheeks unabashedly.

"Be brave, Kim. Be brave. That's good. We need to keep the bleeding under control. That's good. You're okay. Keep the pressure on."

The car disappeared into the distance, the one that had caused the damage. Grey kept working, kept trying to stabilize the kid.

"Come on, buddy. You're doing fine. I know it hurts. I know—I know—I know…"

The little hands clutching Grey's tee shirt relaxed.

"Breathe. Come on. You can do it."

The kid was crashing, and Grey knew it. He knew the signs all too damn well.

"Come on, buddy. You can do it."

_How long will it take for the damn ambulance to get here? Hospital: five minutes out and another five back. This kid wasn't going to last three._

"You know CPR, Kim?"

Kim nodded, terrified.

"He needs it. You're gonna have to breathe for him." Grey started the compressions. "One breath. Now. Come on, Kim. Just one puff. It's a kid."

_No pulse. No pulse!_ He restarted the compressions.

"Kim! Again, Kim. One breath. Keep pressure on the wound."

Kim could barely keep moving; Grey could see that clearly. Flashes of her own child were paralyzing her, and Grey could see that as well.

_All this blood is taking its toll from her. At least she can handle a straight order._

"I know you can hear me, buddy. Don't let go. Don't let go."

_Nothing Just the rush of blood still circulating in his carotid._

"Again, Kim. One. Out." He checked the kid's pulse: nothing. He put his mouth close to the boy's ear: "Stay here, buddy. Stay right here. Don't let go." A new set of compressions. "I know it hurts, but you can handle it. The pain will pass soon, I promise. C'mon!"

_His heart stopped almost a minute ago._

"Breathe, buddy! Just breathe. Listen to my voice. Come back; follow my voice. Come back to me. Come back to me. I know you can hear me. Follow my voice. Breathe, buddy. Breathe!"

_Two minutes. Two minutes without a pulse._

Grey hit the kid hard on the chest, thumping him with his closed fist. _One. Two. Three. Come on! Come on!_ An ominous crack sent chills through Kim eyes wide open at his side, paralyzing her with horror. Grey had heard it before and knew what it meant: an unavoidable part of trying to restart a dying heart. _What does it matter if a rib breaks but the heart keeps going? Priorities, Kim. _He shoved her aside to deliver the breath himself. "Come on buddy." He restarted the compressions. "Kim! Focus! He needs you! Keep pressure on the wound."

_A pulse? A damn pulse! Fuck-fuck-fuck! There's a fucking pulse!_

He could feel the kid's heart refusing to give up.

"That's it, kid. That's it. You're doing good, buddy. You're a champ. The best. Keep breathing."

The scream of the siren jolted Kim out of her panic. One of the paramedics took control, moving her back and her hands off of the wound. Kim stumbled aside, eyes glazed. Grey doubted that she even heard his rapid fire report to the medics.

"Kim?"

Anguish poured from her red-rimmed eyes as she turned to look at him.

"Is he…?"

What was he going to tell her? _Probably not, babe. That much damage? Kid'll be dead before he even gets through the emergency room doors._ "Maybe," Grey temporized. "They'll take him straight to the ER. He's got a chance." _A snowball's chance in hell, more likely. _He stretched out his hand to her. "C'mon; you can get up."

"He was breathing, right? That means that he'll live. We have to go check, make sure that he's okay." Kim wasn't steady on her feet.

"Kim, listen to me. Let's leave them to it. The medics—this is their job, and they're good at it. We have to go now." Didn't she know that Grey couldn't afford to have his name on any official records? He was part of The Unit. Hadn't Bob gone over this with her?

"We can't, Charlie! He's just a kid. We have to go to the hospital with him. He needs us!"

"No-no-no." Not making sense. "Kim," he said urgently, trying to punch through to her, "we need to go. Now."

"But—" Kim wouldn't follow. _Jesus._

Time for harsher measures. Grey grabbed her by the arm, making certain that it hurt. Not too much; just enough to get her attention. "He's got all the people he needs, Kim. And they don't need us getting in their way."

"His mother! We should tell his mother—"

"The police will do it. It's their job, not ours."

"We can't—"

No help for it. A crowd was gathering, and one or more of the onlookers would be certain to remember a gorgeous brunette and the swarthy dude manhandling her away. Grey tugged, not letting go. "Stop it, Kim. You did what you could, and you did it well. Leave it."

"But…"

Lucky shot that the accident happened so close to his place. "No buts, Kim. We're going. Now."

* * *

"Sit, Kim."

His best friend's wife barely realized that she sat in Grey's own apartment.

"Sit," he repeated, guiding her to the sofa and making certain that she was off of her feet before heading to the microwave to prepare a hot mug of tea. Grey watched her stare off into the distance, listening to the microwave count down the final seconds. It beeped, and Kim didn't hear a single sound. Grey sighed. What the hell…He sloshed a measure of whiskey into the mug.

He heard an almost strangled noise coming from the vicinity of the sofa. He looked up to see Kim choking back a sob.

What the hell was he supposed to do now? This was the wife of one of his brothers. If it had just been some girl he'd picked up, he'd know how to comfort her. He could put his arms around her and figure out where to go from there. But this was Bob's wife…

Grey settled for running his hand back and forth on her arm. "You'll be fine. Just a reaction to what happened. Just give it a few moments."

Kim grabbed his hand, unable to let go, unable to look at Grey.

"You did good, Kim." Words would help wash away the moment. He tried to put the hot mug into her hands, but the moment that the heat started to sink in Kim started to shake uncontrollably and Grey took the brew away. Big teardrops rolled down her cheeks while she stared horrified at the blood still caking her hands.

_Damn. Need to get her washed up._ "Don't cry, Kim. Don't cry." _A couple of sips of the tea, to start_. _ That'll help to take the edge off_. "You're okay. It's the adrenaline leaving. You're fine." He pushed the mug to her lips once more, encouraged when she took a few sips. "Little bit more. That's it." If Kim had been one of the guys in the Unit…but then this wouldn't be happening at all.

He saw the moment when she remembered the sickening sound of the kid's bone crunching under Grey's hand. It took hold of her senses, and she choked, the tea spurting over his shirt. Didn't matter; he sat on the sofa by her side, Kim clinging to him, breathing in shallow, sobbing, hiccupping gasps.

"Hey, hey, hey." Grey reached to her, resting one hand on the back of Kim's head, the other on her back, forcing her to lean forward and preventing her from passing out. Molly…he needed to call Molly. She'd know what to do. Broken kids, Grey could handle. Crying wives were a different story.

Kim finally opened her eyes, realizing that her hands were held by Grey who was cleaning them with a damp washcloth. Fresh tears burst out.

Grey gently squeezed her hands. "You'll probably want to wash up," he suggested half-desperately.

Nod.

Grey twisted the knobs on the shower, letting it run hot, and pulled out a towel and some of his own clothes: sweatpants, socks, and a tee. They ought to fit okay, he judged. Bulky in the shoulders, but it couldn't be helped and he couldn't let her go home covered in the kid's blood. "I couldn't reach Molly. Want me to try and contact Bob through the TOC?"

"No. No, don't call Bob. I'm fine." Kim nodded slowly, straightening up.

"I'll be on the other side of the door if you need me. You'll feel better once you've cleaned up; you'll see. Take your time. The tea will help."

Kim stared at him accusingly. "You didn't think that boy would make it, did you?"

Not the time to answer that one. "First things first. Get yourself cleaned up, and settled. We'll talk later."

She shut her eyes tight, and Grey knew what she was hearing: the sound of the kid's desperate wail and the crack of the ribs under Grey's own fist. He waited; it was coming.

Kim broke. The fury and the hate spilled over, and she shoved at her husband's teammate over and over until she was spent.

Grey didn't give way. He stood there, absorbing the blows, absorbing the anger until Kim's knees trembled and threatened to dump her to the floor. He heard her whimper, knowing that she was hating herself for even that small sign of weakness.

"You're too damn cold, Charlie! How could you? You made me turn my back and leave him there!"

_Another place. Take yourself to another place. She speaks in anger, not knowing how close to home she's hitting._

"Shower," he said finally. "You'll need to cool down before you go out in public."

One step…not enough. A new burst of sobbing choked her, and Grey knew that Kim's own daughter's face kept on replacing that of the lost boy. _Damn_.

"Lean on me," he offered, knowing the worst was over. "Sit down. Little sips. Little sips." The mug was in his hand once more, and he held it to her lips. "Let me help you." Grey cadenced his words while forcing her to look at him. "Let's steady your breathing. Do what I tell you. Breathe in. 1-2-3-4. Hold it. Out slowly…1-2-3-4-5-6. That's it. Drink another sip. We keep on breathing _suave_… Again. In. 1-2-3-4. Hold it…"

Her breathing slowed and her arms dropped to her sides, tears still trickling down her face. _Shit!_ He knew the signs: collapse was close. He better got her moving to his bed before the inevitable occurred.

She almost made it, only falling at the last moment to land onto his bed covers. He tucked her in, watching her breathe, watching the lines of tension smooth out of her face. _Man. Bob's wife in my bed. To top it all._

_

* * *

_

She was still sleeping like a dead woman. Not him. Two hours ago Grey felt dirty and sweaty, thirsty and hungry—damn tired. Food, water, a dark little room to hide in and sleep for the next twenty four hours—all Grey had wanted to do when Kim Brown flagged him down

Now, that wasn't all that he wanted. He didn't really know what he wanted anymore. It was Kim. It was seeing her as a mother, trying to defend her child. Wasn't really her child, and it didn't matter. He couldn't fight it. Didn't have it in him. Grey rubbed at the bridge of his nose, only to realize that he himself hadn't yet washed away the evidence, the blood of the kid that he couldn't save. He dumped the tee shirt straight into the trash. His pants followed.

Shower. Hot shower, let the hot water wash away all the blood. Let the hot water wash away all the feelings swirling down along with the blood. He would escort Kim to her perfect little home, bid her farewell, and then crash at his own dump for as long as it took to forget his misery.

He didn't need to feel anything. Kim had been right: Charles Grey was a beast. An unfeeling beast who could be sent out to kill whenever Ryan decided it was necessary.

Ryan was right to send him to wipe out all the families in Baz-el-Had. What did he know about feelings? Didn't need feelings to do that. Feelings only got in the way.

The more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that Ryan had planned it this way. It had been a punitive action against the last attack on the American Embassy. It had been to send a message, and Ryan had to have known. It was impossible that both American and Israeli intelligence together hadn't known of the place.

And Ryan and Jonas Blaine had agreed that Charlie Grey was the man for the job.

Everything seemed so wrong since Hector had gone. He had always shared his better side with Hector, and Hector had somehow always known how to make Grey a better man. Grey had tried to embrace the pain and burn it into fuel for a personal journey in honor of his lost brother, but these days it was tough to see beyond the sorrow. There was less and less comfort, and more and more pain and remorse…

_Hector. Man, why'd you have to go..._


	17. Chapter 17

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 17

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

Kim woke up with the sound of a feral growl still rising from her throat and an overwhelming feeling of intense fear. Her heart was pounding hard and fast, she was breaking out in a sweat, holding her breath, listening to every sound. Her eyes were quickly focusing on what little she could see, instantly and excessively becoming aware of her surroundings. Not her bed, her room, her house. It was dark, but there was a little bit of pale distant light creeping in from the opening door.

"You OK, Kim?" Charlie said quietly stepping in. A strange sense of dread and fury took her by surprise, more when she found the blanket wound around in Grey's dishevelled bed. "Bad dream?

"What time is it?" She felt very alert and, strangely, totally aware of where she was and why she was there.

"Just after two."

Kim sprung to the edge of the bed.

"It's all right. Molly is taking care of Serena. I'll take you home when you feel up to it. Thought you needed some time for yourself."

"I- I- made some noise... Your neighbors..."

"No lieutenants or little kids in this block. Nobody will make a fuss about it. Headache?"

"A bit."

Grey punched a couple of tablets out of a pack on the bedside table and handed them to her together with a little bottle of water.

"That driver..."

"I gave 303rd his plate. They took care to relay it."

"The kid..."

"I'm sure he'll make it."

"There was alcohol in that drink. You know I don't drink."

"It takes the edge off."

"What if I were pregnant and you didn't know?"

Saved by the bell. Someone knocking at the door. Molly for sure.

"You've some clean clothes by the chair. I let you sleep in yours, didn't want to wake you up."

Kim ran a hand over her hair and closed her eyes and let herself dwell in her own turmoil, trying to make sense of it, when she heard the door of the bedroom click shut.

It was not Molly. Kim could hear the voices clearly through the thin walls, and her heart sank.

"Bob." That was Charlie.

"Where's Kim?" Bob demanded.

"In my bedroom. She is changing."

"In your bedroom? Kim!" Bob threw the bedroom door open and stormed in.

"Chill, dude. Did Molly explain-?"

Bob stopped short and stared at her. He swallowed hard. He took in the sight of her, mascara smeared, hair in disarray, the wrinkled clothing…the dried blood.

"Kim! Jesus, what is all this blood? And those bruises on your arm! How did you...? Kim, you all right babe?" Bob quickly took her in his arms as she burst into a new fit of crying at returning his embrace. "Oh, babe! It's Ok, babe... It's Ok... "

"She is good— It's only-"

"I've got her now. Please leave us."

_Am I fucked! Son of a bitch! Not only would Kim see me forever as that unfeeling bea__st that mercilessly broke a child in two in front of her eyes, now my own teammate will never forgive me for manhandling his wife. _His_ wife. Damn-Damn-Damn!_


	18. Chapter 18

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 18

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

_Don't do it, Bob. Don't do it._

"No-no, man." Grey had whispered to Bob just after Bob had picked him out of the group to show how to win the hand in a street fight. "Just don't."

At the back of his mind, Bob realized that in planning a personal vendetta he was stepping out of line. The essence of their job was teamwork, and there he was spinning Grey around the tarmac and slamming him back into the gym's wall, pulling his arms back, practically ripping them off their sockets, trying to crack one of his own team in public. Such was the force of his anger.

Grey felt like salt burned in his skin again. He had almost welcomed his punishment in his way back from Baz-el-Had. Each lash against his skin was for Gojka, the salt they rubbed against his lacerated back was like his job, it hurt like hell but it was for good, a necessary evil; after all, salt saved him from infection. This time he was not to accept any punishment; he had committed no crime.

Bob wasn't going to stop; Grey could see it in his eyes. Adrenaline hit them both, and Grey won the time trial: a vicious knee in the groin, and Bob dropped to the floor.

Bob's eyes widened in shock "Shit" the only word he was able to form in a choked whisper.

"Yo! You good, Bob?" Grey asked with mock solicitude. Grey's eyes shone darkly, the intensity of his anger such that Brown decided it was best to end the confrontation right then.

"Yeah. Yeah."

Grey extended a hand to Bob who took it while he nodded with his head it was over. "We staged this to remind you all that speed, force and surprise are the key." Grey was already saying to the new recruits. "It requires not tidiness, but immediacy and courage not to be deterred by emotions. Even if you're dealing with a friendly hostage, better safe than sorry, better some bruises in the arm than putting a teammate's life at risk because a friendly interfered in the op."

"Preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat. The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction." Bob continued in a pained voice. Both men crossed their stares and there was no hate or further need for explanations. That was that. Point and match for Grey.

* * *

_Grey could feel against his skin every single grain over that rough wood table top.__ The pain on his back was such that he could get mad. It didn't matter. It would over be soon. He almost got it. His fingertips were a few millimeters to it. He could almost feel the soothing metal coldness. His fingers were so close to it. So close. Now he only had to make one last effort, stretch all of his arm, his hand, his fingers... and get a grip on his side arm and save them all. If only he could coil his fingers around it and find the strength to eat the gun... Eat the gun. Come on! Just do it! Eat the gun!_

The little cracks on the ceiling of that Beirut apartment, the beautifully carved wood piece on the wall, all dissolved in a bang.

"Shit! Hell! Fuck-fuck-fuck!" Grey bolted upright, propped himself on one elbow, glanced at his watch and saw the fingers had crawled only around to 2:30 am. He'd woken just after midnight with his back aching viciously. For more than two hours he'd tried to ignore the pain but it had finally gotten him on his knees and he had swallowed a couple of those pills Dr. Ferris had given him. There wasn't anything much stronger at hand that could really take the edge off.

There was no doubt in his mind that the hard stuff was calling him, begging for another chance at his soul, whether it was in the form that the doctor prescribed, or in its street form. It was enough. Pain always goes away eventually; he had to remind himself of. One way or another. He would never risk again his teammates misinterpreting the signs and he had a meeting at the TOC in 4 hours.

The pain of his recent encounter with Bob had reignited the still angry nerves at the site of the Beirut injury, tightening his chest and causing a bout of coughing, which only escalated into more pain, more memories, until he was nauseous with it. He shrugged his right shoulder – the left was too painful to move.

'Kim scent' was still on his pillow. Grey thought in wounded astonishment about Bob for a long time. It was sick. It was the last straw. After all they had been together, how could Bob equate him with such immoral scum like Ryan? He knew it was not only Kim's bruises that impelled Bob to try to administer the justice Bob thought he deserved in the only way Unit men were allowed too, on the gym tarmac.

Grey got up and prowled the little corridor, his gaze always returning to the one closed door. For the thousandth time. Feeling Hector's void like a presence. Doors had always been open in their shared apartment. Nightmares had never been a problem for them. One would gently rescue the other from his own private hell. A grunt and a change of position in bed was all that was needed to say thanks and I am OK. Doors were not there for privacy. Privacy was guaranteed out of respect. Respect meant no unnecessary words exchanged. No fishing for unwanted spilling of emotions that both knew were better where they were, wherever that was.

For the thousandth time he weighed opening that door and facing the pitch black nothingness inside. Hector had not just been shot, he'd gotten killed. In a way, by Grey's own hand. Like Gojka did. He didn't press Hector's nose and mouth, but he has had his gun on his thigh holster all the time. At the reach of his right hand. 'The greater is the risk of inaction' Bob's words at the gym came back at him with a vengeance. Suicide, a sin? That was for believers. Grey was not. He did not even have that get-out-of-hell card.

Grey felt his chin tremble and he clenched his jaw hard to keep his distress inside while pressing at his own ribs, feeling the bulging scar where the chest tube had been, an ever present reminder of Hector's relentless heroic fight to save his life; of his brothers' collective sacrifice. Hector had lost his life. Bob had killed a child that day because of him and nothing would be sacred anymore for him. He would never be the perfect family man he had been so proud of to be. Mack despised himself since then, eaten by remorse for not having kept them all safe in that truck. Jonas... Jonas... There had been a special affinity between Hector and Jonas transcending their arms brotherhood. That innocent Beirut family broken for ever. Mr. and Mrs. Williams too. Even Annie's life had been spoiled that day.

Grey gritted his teeth. Closed his eyes and a little tiny tear emerged from the corner of his left eye. Then he ruthlessly cut off the emotion welling in him. Three minutes – just three minutes and it was over. It was all he conceded himself. He exhaled hard, forcing combat procedure back into his brain. Emotions were a liability he couldn't afford. He dropped to the floor and started a series of push-ups, pain mercilessly spiking all through his nerves. _One hundred and fifty, one hundred and forty nine, one hundred and forty eight..._


	19. Chapter 19

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 19

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

Kim couldn't start the car right away, her racing pulse wild inside her tight chest. Her lungs refused to expand for air and her first attempt at a breath was stolen by a hiccupped sob. As soon as she got a grip on herself she called Molly.

Molly heard her cell phone ring, and she rummaged in her handbag to pull out the small electronic marvel. "Hello?"

"M-Molly?"

"Kim?" It barely sounded like her friend. "Kim, what's wrong?"

"My...my chest hurts...can't breathe..."

"I'm calling 911." Molly was scared. This was serious.

"No!" That came fast. "No, Molly, don't! I'll...I'll be okay."

"Bob, then-"

"No!" Another fast denial. "No, he'll think that I'm just..." Kim's voice trailed off.

As soon as she got her friend at home, safely resting in bed, Molly arranged a visit to Grey for herself. Grey was a medic and he would know what to do.

* * *

"We haven't got your training for this. Is there anything she can do or maybe take to make her feel better?"

"Training? Do you think there is a kind of a vaccine against seeing a child dying in your arms? The most powerful immunization shot they give you in the Army is the peanut-butter shot and it's against syphilis. What kind of TV soap are you on lately, Molly?"

This was the longest tirade she had heard Grey during the last week, and the most sour ever addressed to her for sure. She realized immediately her mistake, how she had lessened with just a few words the worth and the sacrifice of the Unit men. Deeply ashamed of herself, water immediately welled in her eyes.

"It's PTSD we're talking here." Grey continued in an even huskier voice. "It's like sea sickness: when you've got it, you've got it. Guess Kim is having an episode; a panic attack. If she ever asked herself how Bob feels when he wakes her in a sweat in the middle of the night, how it was for real , now she 's gotten a taste of it."

"I-... I-... She sounded so bad..."

"Pretty bitter, huh? Nothing to do with playing the comfort part and forget about it in the morning." The last Molly expected was such a biting reaction. Tears rolled down freely her cheeks by then.

"Come on," Grey followed, "Let's have something to eat. It's late. We'll talk it over."

Molly nerved herself to put her question again, grateful that Grey did as he hadn't taken notice of her crying.

"She's been hit hard by what happened."

"My conscience doesn't bleed. Lucky me. Fancy a sandwich or something?"

"What would you have yourself?"

"The 'something'"

"Make it two. No ice for me." Molly restrained herself before continuing; she came for help for her friend and wouldn't give up to any provocation without a straight answer to take back with her. "Charles, I didn't mean to hurt your feelings before. I put my mouth on drive without having put my brains into gear."

"No need for apologies where there is no offence taken. Those were words coming from a good friend and I knew they were never meant to hurt."

Molly's nose reddened slightly and her eyes watered again. "Thanks."

"I can tell you something about someone as proud and competitive as Kim is –soon she'll be beating herself about 'Am I so much inferior to Bob, that I couldn't stand the strain?' And that's plainly stupid. "Molly pressed the subject again.

"The memory of the sounds, the smell, the images, everything gets enhanced in an ultra real capacity any second you relax your guard. The rehearsal is even worst than the real thing. Our mind is a real fucker most of the times. Don't try to handle Kim gently, tiptoeing around her. She would probably find it annoying. Best you can do is keeping her busy-busy-busy and so tired at night that she falls into a deep sleep. In a few days, Kim will start focusing on other things and her stress will lessen and everything should be more manageable."

"How can she get over it on her own? Kim won't go to a doctor. She is hardly admitting herself she's got a problem." Grey knew quite well what Molly meant. Hadn't he just done the same unless it had been inevitable? And pregnant or not, he would never recommend for her what he did for himself with such poor results.

"Tranks and the stuff doesn't really help. Just masks the real problem. As I said, take control and bear it. That's the way. No guilt. No shame. No regret. On anything she did yesterday. Let her run on the details and help her see that she did good. That the kid had been lucky that Kim was there to help. Work on that with her, in all the positive things. It should help."

"Maybe we could go and visit the kid at the hospital or at home. That should be like an instant balm for her soul. I should try and-"

Grey struggled to stay silent. Hardly resisting the burning to tell her all within him.

"Why does it work with you and doesn't it work with Kim? You saved a life. That child would have died had not both of you been there." He had been feeling recoiling from her presence, yet he could look straight into her warm brown eyes at her demand.

"Yeah, well he did, the kid is dead," Grey interjected bitterly."The kid was declared dead at arrival at the hospital. Didn't make it to ER. Kim called to tell me." Kim's uncontrolled rage at telling him had been close to breaking Grey as nothing else ever had.

Molly watched the emotions flit over her friend's face and realized there was so much going on behind those deep black eyes – stuff that Grey wanted, was forced to keep for himself. It didn't take words for Molly to understand that. Quietly she reached out and put her hand on Grey's knee, her eyes seeking out and locking onto Grey's again.

"I've meant to tell you but I couldn't find the right time, Molly; just how much I appreciate what you did for me back in Fayetteville. I was in deep shit then. I never thought anyone would stand out for me like you did. Nor in the state I was, the way I looked." Clearly seeing such a deep pain and regret oozing out from his friend's eyes that she would never thought would be morphed into words, Molly dared to silently take his chin between two of her fingers and forced him to look into her eyes.

"When I look at you, the only thing I see is an honorable man. Same man on the floor or standing." She gave him a warm, strong and supportive squeeze with her free hand that he reciprocated.

"Why didn't you come to last Tuesday's BBQ?"

"When I was with the Rangers, there was this guy, Molly. He was huge, and he was always on my back. One day, on training, Hector maintained the choke hold too long and the guy lost control of his bladder and peed himself in front of the rest. I'm sure Hector did it on purpose, but he would never tell me 'cause he would never admit he did it to protect me."

Grey rocked back on his chair his eyes shone darkly.

"When you feel like everybody is against you, that's when you find out who is there for you, Molly. That's the truth. That's what true means for me. There is truth in you. There was truth in Hector, too." Grey shook his head, and Molly could all but hear the sergeant's thoughts: he had the fear of exclusion about the rest.

"Don't worry about Kim. People can stay together if they really want to, even if there's a whole lot of shit going on around them. I'd seen it happen. This is how it goes: We are a family first, no matter what disagreements we may have, no matter what pain we may suffer ... We learned long ago to meet in the middle, because otherwise the family is lost."

"Molly... I am one of those boy soldiers. One of those like you read in the newspapers that are only in Africa. But there are boy soldiers in the USA too, and I am one of them. I had no life previous to the Army; it was just surviving on the streets. I was 15 when I enlisted; I lied about my real age."

"After a few years in the Army I knew I couldn't be a student or a bartender or anything else, for that matter. I couldn't do anything other than what I did. Sure, I didn't much like a lot of the stuff that went with it. Well, this is what I do, and I am good at it. And, thanks to Hector, when we were with the airborne medics corps I realized I was working for something I believed in but there was a lot more that I had missed about life. 'When there is something worth dying for it's because there's something to survive for in the first place.' That's what he would say."

"I miss him so much, Charlie. It hurts."

"You tell me... Mama's first lesson to me was to never trust someone who might be kind to me. Guess I didn't learn that one. Second was easier: always carry a switchblade. Strange, huh?"

He produced one sharp switchblade from his left front pocket and then he leaned towards the window sill and cracked open the piece of wood on the side, producing a thin plastic box.

"Molly... If ever anything occurs to me... you know... Will you be wanting..." Grey,'s head inclined forward.

"Anything. Just tell."

He sat in the semi darkness of the piece and Molly sat by his side, in silence, while Charlie opened the box and produced a worn out photograph of a woman with a baby in her arms.

"This is Mama."

"And you." The subtle changes in the fading light through the ripples of the curtain cast a shadow over that image that lathered the woman's face.

"Naw... That is my older brother, Charles. Not me." Grey tilted his head with a little bitter chuckle before continuing, "I don't have one of mine. Never found one among my mom's things."

"Charles? You're Charles." Silence settled among them for a few uncomfortable seconds.

"My brother died as a baby and my mom gave me his name." Molly just nodded. She could see some hurt there and didn't want to explore further.

"Mama left this world long ago, when I was 14. Never knew who my dad was." Molly gently took the picture in her hands and studied the crumpled face of that woman and recognized immediately the matted look in her eyes, the dismay in her looks, her own father's troubled life coming to her mind.

"I am sorry. Do you have more family, Charlie?" She had not meant to thrust herself into his life, but the question came naturally.

Grey's answer was most unexpected. "Just you. And my bros in the Unit. And Hector." Molly listened to his quivering voice with mounting emotion while he continued huskier than usual. "Remember—Do you remember- how Hector would—" he pinched the bridge of his nose and offered Molly a weak grin but the smile didn't reach his eyes. "You know—He would make us laugh- that silly laugh-" Molly saddened as she watched Grey blinking and looking away, struggling to compose himself, acutely aware of the tightly reined in tension in his body.

Something rolled inside the box, over a closed envelope and Grey chuckled at the sight of it despite himself. "Look! My lucky marble . I forgot I put it in here." Silence settled in for a few seconds before he dared to look straight to Molly's face again. "I'd feel honored if you accept to be my legal next of kin, Molly, now that Hector is not with us anymore. In this envelope there is my handwritten will. If you accept, I'd make the necessary changes to my official papers too before leaving tomorrow."


	20. Chapter 20

**Title:** Dark Alley - Chapter 20

**Disclaimer:** This is intended as a fan fiction, on characters owned by their original creators and I am not making a profit out of it.

* * *

It was silent, the wind moving gently over fields of grass. It was pissing down with rain. Grey was drenched, rivulets of rainwater running through his short curly hair and trickling off his nose and from his chin. A lone tree stood over him, its branches reaching into a sullen sky. The tree would provide the shelter.

The wind rushed through his ears. It was cold. So cold. So dark. He could hardly imagine a worse scenario. It was a weird terrain in itself, totally flat, grass recently cut around the level stones scattered around and there was the strong smell of rain-wet earth. The storm was full fledged now. He felt totally exposed. His night vision blurred as he looked down at the stone before him. An intense fear took him by surprise; a fear unknown to him before then. And yet, yeah, it was right there. He was right where he wanted to be.

In his journey back from Baz-el-Had he had felt lost and desperate, detached from the rest of the unit in hostile territory, without a map or a weapon, and no hint of which way to go but looking past a bright Moon to a gleaming Milky Way. Maybe it was the first time he felt like a believer. Only in the desert you could feel like that, one with the Universe, by just looking at the sky by night, studded with stars, mirroring with its sparkling the phosphorescence on the jungle floor so many thousand miles away.

All the places in the world he had been had their own particular soul. In all the places he had felt connected somehow, part of it. He would hear his teammates complaining about all the little creepy-crawlies on the forest floor ticking their sanity away with their continuous biting, and yet his curious eyes were only focused at how such tiny little beings would be so perfect and beautiful in his own particular way.

_But __every place I had been it had been with a purpose: to kill or to learn to be even more proficient in killing. Blood spoilt on the soil makes mud too. In the dark, you can't even tell the difference_.

Everything about his job was wrong. He _knew_, even being the brutal, reckless bastard he was. He knew. A man that was no better than a beast. That was his task, that was his duty. Fuck the moral framework Ryan had forged for all of them to look like heroes. He'd heard all that crap a million times before over the years. _Such a lie. You can't train a hunting dog and then expect it to live like a poodle._

He was a war dog and would never do anything else in this world. This was the naked truth: He liked doing what he was doing. He couldn't help it. He liked it, and he was one of the best at it. He had made that hard choice long time ago and it had been final. No revisiting. Not now. Not never. He wasn't proud of himself, but had placed that feeling in his mental garbage can with the lid back on.

That same trash can held the emotions around the death of his mother. Grey knew then he would never have a proper family. His _mama_ was right. He could love anyone that didn't kick him in the head, women and men alike. Particularly women 'cause he craved for the feeling of some warm comforting arms around him. So Army had been OK. But Hector, his best friend, he had been the real thing. For long difficult years, the keeper of Grey's independent republic of self in one piece.

He forced himself to look directly below him to that stone at his feet, that one that would remain when he would be long gone. The only one to bear witness of why it was worth living for. _To mark the dead end of a destiny._

The tears finally caught him at that point, under the silent tree. He dropped to the ground, squatting with his back against that lonely tree, in the middle of that vast plain, filled with grass and the bare bones of all living things stripped of life by the unrelenting pass of time.

Looking up to see that stone silhouetted against the glow, Grey's eyes were glistening with tears and his breathing was increasingly sharp and quick as he swallowed hard. "Oh, brother...Dude..." He was having a moment with his thoughts, not even realizing he'd spoken as he rubbed his stubble with shaking hands, scrubbing the tears off his face.

Time passed; he had no idea of how much time. He had made himself calm down. The tears eventually stopped, as if his body had no more to give. He could still feel the ache, the void inside, but the tears themselves were gone. He couldn't remember when or if it was the blowing wind that dried them away, like it had dried his clothes. Like tears had flushed out the dirt in him, cleansed the open wounds to start healing.

The wind got stronger, but with his back against that big oak it didn't matter much. He dared another look at the stone but instantly he looked away and he tried to focus on the darkness above. He didn't want to but it was unstoppable now, he would have to get up and face the new day - first light was starting to edge its way past Hector's tombstone.

Hector Lucian Williams. His friend. His brother. November 6th 2007. Two years already. A hell of a lot in the middle. It seemed like yesterday.

Charlie Grey knelt down and caved a little hole on the wet ground behind the grave stone with his hands. Then he dug into his left pocket and got out the new silver star he had been awarded with and buried it there.

"This is to you. This is for you, Hector."

He pulled himself upright. A primeval mist blanketed the ground. A flock of some hundred black crows took off ahead of him. Way back to the Life. As he climbed out the little cliff behind, all the birds were in full song: daylight was nearly there. A new flock of white doves lifted from the treeline beyond flapping their wings free.

_Yin Yang._ Seemingly contrary forces interconnected and interdependent in the natural world giving rise to each other. Time to face a new day for him too. Like birds. And flowers. Out of the blue. Nice and easy. Till time comes the night should engulf him again. But that would be then, not before.

_Yeah, back to The Life... _And he walked out the graveyard, his boots and the rim of his trousers wet from the grass and his jacket collar turned up against the cold, only stopping on his way back to the car to fish the cell on his pocket. _It must be 9 am back in Bellevue._

"Hiya, Molly. Charlie." (...) "I was wondering. Would you be up for a meal on my pad next Saturday? With everybody and kids. Maybe Betsy can make it too." (...) "Wow, no! Just a friends' reunion. I can cook too, you know? I can pull some favourites for you all. Have faith..." (...) "So, that's a Yes. Great. 6,30 pm. Next Saturday. Nope. Don't bring anything. I'll take care of all. Tiffy, Kim and you get a rest, just bring your goodselves."


End file.
